Still Dreaming
by The Jashinist and Peeves
Summary: Ruby's been having odd dreams lately, the kind that she's reluctant to tell her friends about. Little does she know, Roman's been having the same dreams… I am Rosewick trash, sue me. Rated T for now, may become M rated later, depends. Post-Breach AU [since, you know, we don't know what happens next yet]
1. The First Dream

The First Time it was a Mystery

Ruby shuffled across the room hesitantly; the dim light shining through the windows outlined the details of a rather tidy bachelor pad—how she had arrived here from her dorm was a mystery. In fact everything up to this point in her memory seemed rather fuzzy, she couldn't even recall the elevator trip up to this floor (even though the vague view from the windows suggested a high elevation). Ruby shook off her feeling of uneasiness and turned the corner past the living area of the flat into a hall that she soon realized led to the bedroom. How her body had known to turn there was something that she didn't want to know, especially upon recognizing the occupant of the bed she was walking towards. His signature coat and bowler hat might not have been present, but the bright orange hair and smug expression that somehow remained even in his sleep were enough of an indicator.

_ Torchwick._

Ruby began listing the number of very good reasons for why she should get out of here and call the authorities on him, yet she found herself moving closer to the bed beyond all reason and studying the currently comatose and vulnerable criminal. The black dress shirt he typically wore beneath his jacket had the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, his grey tie was loosened, his shoes were kicked off and his orange hair was somewhat tousled (likely a result of some unconscious shifting on his part). Ruby stood there for a moment watching the sleeping man, before the act of putting yet another foot forward caused a single floorboard to creak, and in seconds Roman had grabbed her by the wrist and flung her to the bed, his eyes still closed as he leaned over top of her.

"How naughty of you, Red," he addressed her lazily, his eyes opening slightly to peek at her form, "Sneaking into a man's bedroom like this…hasn't anyone ever told you that you need to knock?"

Ruby growled but didn't say a word, causing him to chuckle a bit at her anger.

"How'd you find this place, Red?" Roman leaned a little closer to her face, causing her to let out a small squeak of discomfort.

"L-Let me go!" Ruby struggled in vain as his hands clamped down harder on her wrists, making no attempt to answer his question—partially out of defiance and partially because she really didn't know in the first place.

"Now now, Red, let's not be hasty, one thing at a time," Roman smirked and moved her arms above her head so he could hold them with one hand. "I want to know how you got here. Maybe I'll let you go…if you tell me."

"I don't know, okay?!" Ruby shouted into his face, making him laugh a little louder.

"You don't know? Oh come on Red, this place isn't exactly a hop skip and a jump away from your dorm at Beacon. Surely you have a few clues as to how you got from point A to point B. And in nothing but your jammies, no less."

Ruby's eyes widened and she looked down at herself, noting at once that she was indeed dressed for bed. She glanced back up at Roman, already feeling the heat growing in her cheeks as she averted her gaze once more. She felt him shift on the bed and heard him let out another light chuckle.

"Oh, you know you've found a modest girl when she thinks showing some arm skin is _revealing_. Or are you blushing because it's me?"

Ruby held her breath as his fingers grabbed her chin and pulled her gaze back towards him.

"Is that it? Oh don't flatter me Red, you might make me blush," Roman's smirk widened, "And honestly, this behavior isn't really fitting for a girl as sinfully innocent as you."

"S-Shut up."

"Well aren't you talkative today. You know…" Roman shifted on top of Ruby again, causing her to catch her breath, "If I didn't know better, I'd think you were here for some…adult reasons, what with your state of dress and all."

"Gross," Ruby muttered. "I would neve—"

"Of course you wouldn't, Red," Roman leaned in close enough to brush his lips against hers, soliciting a small whine from the girl.

_"I know better than that."_

oooOOOooo

Ruby woke with a start to the sound of her alarm, her bed creaking and swinging slightly at the sudden movement. It wasn't as if she was struggling to catch her breath or anything, what she remembered of her dream, despite being lucid, didn't feel like a nightmare. Odd, and unexpected, considering the content.

"Ruby? You alright?"

Ruby glanced down and was met with Blake's concerned gaze, whose expression was followed suit by Yang's.

"Oh, I'm fine," Ruby smiled, "Just a weird dream, that's all."

"A dream?" Blake repeated.

"Oooo, what about, sis? Spill!"

"It was nothing, really, Yang."

"Oh, come on, I wanna know!"

"Yang, I don't wanna talk about it!"

"Will you guys be quiet?!"

Ruby, Blake and Yang turned their attention to Weiss's bunk, where the girl in question was only just beginning to stir.

"It's too early for this!"

"Sorry Weiss," Ruby mumbled.

"It's already eight o'clock," Blake murmured.

"Chill, princess," Yang muttered.

Ruby sighed and hopped off her bed. "Let's get ready for class." She needed something, anything to keep her mind off Torchwick.

It was just a dream. That's all it was.

oooOOOooo

Around the same time, in an apartment near the center of Vale, a certain criminal was pulling himself out of bed. He leaned his head into his hand as he sat up, in a vain attempt to convince himself that he was hung over, that he had a fever dream, _something_. He must have been drinking last night; that was the only plausible explanation for his dreaming about Red. Dreaming about Red and _enjoying it_. Those two concepts should've been forbidden to occupy the same sentence.

"Ah, Roman, really, get a grip," he mumbled to himself, "It was only a dream." Roman rose from the bed and made his way towards his bathroom to start the daily routine. Maybe that could get his mind off of that…terribly lucid dream. Roman could almost feel the warmth of her skin on his hands, sense the softness of her wrists, the girl had looked much cuter than he'd have expected when she blushed…Roman quickly slapped a handful of cold water into his face for good measure. _Nothing_ about Red was cute, he reminded himself. Not her blushing, not her angry face, not even the loose rose printed white pajama pants and black tank top that she'd been wearing. Roman vaguely wondered if she actually wore something like that when she was asleep before groaning and slapping himself in the forehead.

"Honestly, fella, girls like that are not your type, get ahold of yourself," Roman squeezed his eyes shut and held the bridge of his nose, trying desperately to take his thoughts off the girl. Momentarily they left him, and he resumed his daily routine only to stop short at the mirror once more, now fully groomed and dressed, and bring his fingers up to his lips. In the dream…he had kissed her. It had been barely a brush of their lips, but that counted. He could recall pretty well. Her lips had been…soft. When Roman realized that his thoughts had veered back to her, he clicked his tongue in annoyance. This couldn't be good for his health. Roman exited his apartment in a hurry, off to whatever job Cinder wanted him to accomplish before he could give Red any more thought.

It was only a dream. And that's all it would ever be.

oooOOOooo

_Rosewick trash Peeves reporting in. So I get that the concept of this story may seem a bit weird and like it's severely messing with the laws of Remnant's reality [in all likelihood, it probably is] but allow me to clarify the basics. I got tired of seeing a bunch of kidnapped-Ruby fics and the like but couldn't find any non-kidnapped-Ruby fics with a premise that actually appealed to me. So this concept popped into my head, which is quite simple: Ruby and Roman begin having the exact same dreams at the exact same time. How? Because magic. Why? Soulmates, voodoo, witchcraft, karma, weather, I dunno, choose-your-own-reason. Where am I going with this? Haven't the foggiest guys. I'm only doing it for science. What science, you ask?_

_…_

_CHEMISTRY._

_Rosewick trash Peeves out til next chapter._


	2. The Second Dream

The Second Time it Caught them by Surprise

Roman would be the first to admit that this was a fairly odd occurrence. After wandering the halls of what he assumed was Beacon, he had wound up in a heavily decorated dorm room with questionably safe furnishings. That is, if you could even bother to call makeshift bunk beds held together with rope and books remotely 'safe'. Roman chuckled and made his way further into the room, noting immediately that Red was presently comatose in the roped up top bunk. He smirked but didn't bother trying to reach her at her current position. One of her bratty friends was sleeping in the bunk below and either way he wasn't risking the weight limit on that hazardous hanging mattress.

So he studied the room from the windowsill, making mental guesses as to who owned what in their abode. The fancy painting on the wall…definitely looked like it belonged to the girl beneath Red. She seemed like a princess personality, if memory served its purpose she certainly fought like one. The boy band posters were loud and obnoxious, and very slanted—probably Blondie's then. The bookshelf was organized and swollen with books, and if Roman looked closely there seemed to be a ninja themed harlequin romance hidden between the folds of a more seasoned novel. Likely the property of the cat girl, she seemed like the quiet type to have her nose in a book. And the curtain…was crimson in color and had an enormous, slanted cut through it—likely Red's handiwork. Roman chuckled and fingered the shoddy sewing holding the damaged fabric together when a small squeak sprung up to his left.

"How the hell did you get in here?!" Red had her pillow at the ready as she stared at Roman, her eyes wide and her face beet red.

"Such harsh words for such a sweet girl," Roman said mockingly with a playful smirk. "If you must know, I walked."

"You walked here wearing nothing but _that?!_"

Roman looked down at himself nonchalantly and figured that she was likely referring to his normal pajamas, or rather, the fact that his only garment at the moment was a pair of pajama pants. He looked back up at Red and tilted his head, finding her flustered reaction all too amusing. "You walked all the way to my apartment wearing nothing but that," he noted as he gestured lightly to her sleepwear, and if her blush could've gotten any darker, it probably did.

Red growled and pelted her pillow at him. "Get out!" she shrieked quietly as she found more objects to throw at him, and Roman couldn't help but laugh at her. Even when she hopped off the bed, he couldn't help but be amused at her clumsy kicks as they aimed poorly at his shins. His amusement probably stemmed from how graceless and void of any combat skill the attacks were, yet despite this Red still managed to make him back out of the room, laughing all the while as she growled with fury. "Go away! Get!" she hissed.

Roman had to hold his hand over his mouth to stifle his laughter. "Hell, Red, why don't you just start chanting 'Get back ye demon' and make the whole thing a lot quicker?"

"Shut up!" Red backed Roman into the hallway and began pushing him to the right. Roman was still laughing despite her rather forceful methods.

"What in the world are you doing?"

"I'm pushing you back to your apartment!"

"You're going the wrong way."

Red let out another, much louder groan of anger as she whipped around to the other side of his body and started pushing him from the front. Roman couldn't help but admit that the look of determination she was wearing was nothing short of adorable.

"You know Red, I hate to point this out, but I do know how to walk on my own."

"I don't trust you to!" she yelled, her voice raising slightly above the hushed tone she'd been exercising.

"Oh? Why not?"

"You snuck into my dorm room!"

"And you snuck into my apartment."

"That's not the same!" Red wailed, banging a small fist against Roman's chest in flustered retaliation.

"You're right. It's worse."

"Oh if I had Crescent Rose with me right now…"

Roman perked an eyebrow and chose to assume that she was referring to her scythe. "I was wondering where your giant weed cutter had gotten to. You didn't misplace it anywhere, did you?"

Roman smirked as Red glared daggers into him with her eyes—poor girl looked like she was about to pop a blood vessel. "I didn't lose it, Torchwick! We keep them in our lockers at night! Now get out before my team notices that I'm gone!"

"Your team is asleep."

"They might wake up!"

"Raise your voice a little louder, Red," Roman smirked and pressed a finger against her lips, "Maybe they will."

Red's eyes widened and darted around as if she had only just realized that she was in the middle of a dark hallway in her pajamas with her hands flat against a criminal's bare chest. The look of shock was fitting as she stepped back a little and looked around frantically, obviously trying to make sure no one had seen them. "You really need to go," she murmured as she looked back towards him. Roman's brow furrowed at that. He's seen this face on Red before, like the night before she seemed...

_Afraid._

Roman tilted his head and stared down at her thoughtfully, his lips set in a thin frown as he held his concentration. "Are you worried about me?" It was a shot in the dark question, but as Red's eyes focused on him again something told him he was right.

"What?! No! No I…" Red's gaze quivered and fell to the floor, her tiny hands balling into fists before she spoke again. "The night watch will return to this part of the building soon, just leave before they find you, okay? And before I change my mind."

"Aw, Red that's really too sweet of you. I'm touched," Roman smirked as the girl glared up at him again.

"I should turn you in, you know."

"Oh I do know."

"And I didn't help you out. Remember that."

"I know Red," Roman smiled and leaned in to deliver a small kiss to the girl's lips. He pulled out slightly, his small smile changing to a playful smirk as he spoke again.

_"You're secret's safe with me."_

oooOOOooo

Roman was not having a good day. Where the first dream about Red had been unexpected, the second had taken on a whole new level of strange and had gone from a manageable afterthought to a string of mental images that was continuing to haunt him well into the afternoon. He felt frustrated with it all—and somewhat akin to a preteen mass of volatile hormones, much to his dismay. At any given moment he would go from positively giddy to concerned to glaring murder at any object that moved. Admittedly the latter emotion had taken up the majority of the day as every time a memory of Red made him smile in a less then vindictive way he spent hours trying to etch into his brain that he did not like Red _at all_. And even though he kept repeating the process, it wouldn't work. He agitated himself with his own mental weakness.

This was probably why, at five in the evening, Roman was laying on his couch with an old magazine slapped over his face instead of listening attentively to the small assembly that he was supposed to be hosting.

"Aw, did you not catch enough sleep, Roman? Stay up past your bedtime?"

Roman lifted the magazine off his face slightly to glare at Mercury, who was slumping unceremoniously in one of his kitchen chairs. His gaze flicked momentarily to the snickering green haired girl next to the boy before focusing back to him. "Geez, Mercury, did Cinder never teach you how to properly mock someone? Because if that's all you can manage then I'm afraid you're far more pitiful than I'd previously thought."

Mercury scowled at the comment and Roman replaced the magazine over his eyes, smiling happily at his handiwork. Rendering people speechless when you were in a bad mood was quite uplifting.

"Roman, is there any reason that you have not contributed once to this meeting?" Cinder's soft, threatening voice reached his ears and he sighed in response.

"Stress headache," Roman replied carelessly, "Way too many close encounters with authority in the past few jobs you've given me. You did notice that I was put on death row after escaping prison, right?"

"I did notice, but I thought that with your talent for avoiding arrest, it wouldn't be an issue."

"Well talent or not, the death penalty makes the possibility of being captured a little more threatening, doesn't it? Not saying I don't want to continue working for you Cinder, but I do think we ought to lay low until the heat dies down. The train incident has the whole city on red alert and we're not prepared enough to operate around this much security with the Vytal Festival in the way."

"If you had been listening like you were supposed to be, you would know that we decided to halt operations until the heat dies down over an hour ago. In the meantime, we've been compiling a list of individuals to watch out for once we begin moving again. Care to contribute?"

Roman grumbled a little to himself before lifting off the couch and heading to the table where Cinder, Adam, Neo, Mercury, and Emerald were all seated around Cinder's scroll. Roman leaned over Cinder's shoulder to glance at the scroll's screen, which had two columns of identification photos and their respective titles, the left side for people listed as 'threats' and the right for those listed as 'not a threat'. He sighed and flicked a finger across the right list, scrolling past dozens of unimportant people before one in particular stuck out to him.

_Ruby Rose_

_Age: 15_

_Occupation: first year at Beacon and leader of team RWBY_

_NOT A THREAT_

Roman squinted at the picture and the description for a moment. That was definitely Red. Younger than he'd expected. She definitely skipped a year if she was already at Beacon. "Put Red on the threat list," Roman mumbled lazily, "preferably _before_ she makes us all into sitting ducks later on."

"Red…you mean Ruby?" Roman straightened himself and glanced at Emerald, who was staring at him with a look of surprise. He gave a curt nod before walking to the adjacent kitchen to pour himself a cup of something alcoholic. He needed something to calm his nerves before the thought of Red could make him smile like an idiot.

"The kid was made specifically to get in the way of any criminal operative in Vale," he stated simply as he came back into the room with a glass of brandy in hand. "She's been a thorn in my side from the very beginning."

"She seemed kinda nice when we ran into her at Beacon. Also kinda ditsy though," Emerald shrugged.

"She is ditsy, I'll grant you that," Roman smirked and took a sip of his brandy.

"She also didn't seem like much of a threat when I fought her at the Transmit Tower…" Cinder murmured, her eyes narrowing in thought.

"You fought her?" Roman perked an eyebrow. "When was this?"

"During the Beacon Dance."

Roman barely stifled a snicker. "That's a formal event, isn't it?"

"Yes."

"Was Red wearing heels?"

"I didn't take the time to look at her footwear," Cinder frowned, "But she didn't seem to be very steady on her feet, if that's what you mean."

"She was probably wearing heels," Roman confirmed, "But if you must know her combat ability isn't the reason she should be on that list."

"Then what is your reason?"

"Did I forget to tell you why I had to start the train early?"

"I assumed it was because something went awry with the nearby Grimm. Was it something else?"

"It was Red," Roman said bluntly. "She and her merry band of do-gooders found the underground base against all odds and tried to stop the train. They failed, but in the long run they did succeed in slowing us down. You saw her description, she's a team leader. And her team's been watching us far too closely for far too long. We need to watch them back."

"Very well. We'll add all of Team RWBY to the list."

"Good," Roman finished off his glass of brandy and sauntered back to the couch. "Wake me up if you need anything else," he muttered as he placed the magazine over his eyes once more. The group continued their conversations and Roman let out a small barely audible sigh of relief. He was glad they weren't paying attention to him, because the mention of Red had veered his thoughts back to his dream the night before; the mental images of her blushing and the feel of her hands on his chest, her lips against his own, preyed on his brain like a ferocious beast, relentless and very aggravating. _Ruby Rose_. It was a pretty name, one well suited to a girl like Red. She was certainly cute enough to pull it off…Roman scowled under the safety of the magazine on his face. He needed to stop thinking about it. She wasn't pretty, she wasn't cute, she wasn't even real. They were _dreams_. He was becoming attached to a ghost.

She was just a dream. And she going to stay that way.

oooOOOooo

Around the same time on a certain rooftop at Beacon Academy, Ruby was sitting alone, hugging her knees with one arm and pressing her fingers to her lips, lost in thought as she enjoyed the one free moment she'd had to think about her dream from the night before. Yang had tried once more to get Ruby to tell her about it, but she had refused again—and much more adamantly this time. If the first dream was concerning for not being a nightmare, then the second one should've scared her beyond her wits for not being one. If Roman Torchwick showing up half dressed in her dorm room didn't seem like a creepy scary thing while she was dreaming about it then something had to have snapped in her mind. Maybe it was her sanity.

Ruby groaned and hid her head between her knees as she remembered the worst part. He had kissed her. More than in the first dream, an actual kiss, and even though she had been too flustered to kiss him back at the time she was pretty sure…that she'd liked it. She was not supposed to _like_ the idea of Torchwick kissing her. She wasn't supposed to dream about _Torchwick kissing her_. And yet here she was, in the aftermath, with a furious blush plastered on her face as she mentally cursed herself for craving more. She needed to stop. He wasn't handsome, he wasn't a good kisser, he wasn't _real_. These were dreams. Nothing more than disturbing mental images.

He was just a dream. He was nothing more than that.

oooOOOooo

_Rosewick trash Peeves reporting in. So I'm still breaking all the laws of Remnant logic for the sake of Chemistry, and I'd like to thank you all profusely for the lightning fast positive reception I got on the first chapter. Three reviews, Seven favorites, and Sixteen follows, all within twenty four hours of publication. Wow. You guys are super awesome, thank you so much. So a couple of things I'd like to clarify about this chapter just in case some of you have questions:_

_1.- Roman escaping was a big security issue for Ironwood and he may or may not have killed a few guards on his way out. Hence his sentence was uped to the equivalent of "Somebody please kill this f**ker"._

_2.- Roman has about a dozen apartments strewn throughout the city of Vale, and none of them are under his name. He uses them as crash pads that he pays for generously to bribed landlords/cronies, which he can do because as far as I'm concerned Roman is a pureblood white collar criminal._

_3.- Of the RWBY villians, Roman is one of the only two that has fought Ruby before, and the only one that's lost. And as confident and charismatic as Roman is, he has often struck me as the only cautious villain, as to date he is the only one I've seen that has ever planned for unforeseen circumstances. I don't think anyone else would've really thought to classify Ruby as a threat._

_Feel free to review, follow, favorite, etc. I'll be happy if you do, my ego likes being fed, it makes me write faster. Next chapter will be out as soon as possible for the sake of Chemistry. Until then though…_

_Rosewick trash Peeves out until next chapter._


	3. The Third, Fourth and Fifth Dreams

The Third Time it Felt Routine (As it did with the Fourth and the Fifth)

Ruby hated the fact that she had a clue as to where she probably was. Even though it was a different apartment, the décor was far too similar to be a coincidence. Even when she turned an entirely different corner, she had a sinking feeling that she was indeed heading towards the bedroom of one Roman Torchwick. And upon reaching the sleeping quarters, she knew herself to be right. He was wearing about as much as he had been in the night before (rather, she hoped he was but couldn't see past the sheets over his legs)—she smiled a little as the bangs normally covering his right eye had fallen away a bit to reveal more of his face.

Ruby closed the distance between herself and the man, making it all the way to the edge of the bed before his eyes flicked open and she was yanked onto the bed once more, this time by her…waist.

"Nice to see you, Red," Roman chuckled as Ruby squirmed against his arm, "Sneaking out to see me again, are we?"

"Don't flatter yourself," Ruby hissed.

"Hm, I'll take that as a yes," Roman smirked and pulled her closer to him, causing her to let out a small whine and blush as her arms met his chest. "Seriously, you need to tell me how you keep find these hideaways of mine. It's embarrassing to have such a young security leak."

"What, am I putting a boo boo on your ego?" Ruby asked flatly.

"Hardly," Roman grinned and pressed his lips lightly against hers, "I'm just curious."

Ruby whined again as Roman kissed her firmly this time, one of his hands travelling to her head and tangling into her hair. When he broke away, she let out a breathy whimper, some small sane part of her was still cursing her out for enjoying his lips.

Roman smirked, but instead of leaning in for another kiss, he pulled away and fell back onto his back. "So Red, since you've gotten me alone for a while, why don't you tell me about yourself?"

Ruby's brow furrowed in confusion as she rolled onto her stomach and leaned on her elbows. "Since when do you care?"

"I don't," Roman said dryly as he lifted a hand to straighten out his bangs. "I simply think it's a better way to pass the time than sitting here in silence. Unless of course you'd prefer that."

"No," Ruby shook her head and sighed. "What would you like to know?"

"I don't—" Roman groaned and cast a sidelong glance at Ruby, looking somewhat frustrated with her. "Favorite food?"

"Strawberries. Yours?"

"Churros. Favorite song?"

"This Will Be the Day. You?"

"Not really a music person. I suppose something classical every once in a while doesn't hurt though."

"You like snooze tunes?"

"Go ahead, judge me. Favorite hobby?"

"Weapon maintenance. Yours?"

Roman's face contorted into a sly grin. "Pickpocketing."

Ruby wrinkled her nose in disgust and he laughed.

"I'm kidding. Card games are always fun. Poker especially."

"So your favorite hobby is gambling?"

"Card games in general, Red. You can play cards without placing a bet. I'm rather partial to Spit or Spoons when I'm not in the mood for gambling."

"How do you play those?"

"Maybe I'll teach you sometime. Parents?"

"Ah…" Ruby looked down at the mattress, and after a small silence Roman spoke up again.

"Bad topic?"

"Yeah, kinda…"

"Moving on then. Favorite subject in school?"

Ruby paused and looked at Roman quizzically. "You don't care?"

"Hm?"

"About my parents?"

"Not that it was important to me to begin with, but no, I really don't care if whatever it is is some kind of sob story."

"What about your parents?"

"Dead," Roman stated bluntly, "killed by a bill collector. Can we move on now?"

"…Do you miss them?"

Roman groaned loudly. "No, not really. Can we move on?"

"Why not?"

"Christ, Red, beat the dead horse, why don't you…because I don't. It's a long story that I don't feel like telling and honestly, bottom line, it's not your business."

"Fine, sorry I asked…" Ruby muttered and looked away, her eyes wandering the well-kept apartment thoughtfully. "How does a criminal even afford a place as nice as this?" she murmured.

"Generous bribery and document forgery," Roman stated carelessly, causing Ruby's vision to shift back to him.

"Generous bribery? How do you afford that?"

"Um, I'm a professional thief? You do the math. Besides, my deals with the landlords are simple. I pay enough for a one bedroom apartment in order to occupy this under an alias, or they can watch me take away everything they love. Most of them choose the former option, but I have had a few…accidents."

Ruby wrinkled her nose once more. "That's evil."

Roman simply smirked. "You didn't actually think that I acquired this place through honest means, did you?"

"How are you that unfazed? You're hurting those people!"

"And? Do I really look like I care?"

Ruby looked at the man in shock as he smirked lazily at her. "You're evil."

"Oh, honestly, Red, I'm really quite aware of that."

Ruby scoffed. "If you're so aware of it then why do you keep acting like this?"

"Because to date I haven't found a valid reason not to."

"You're hurting people."

Roman shrugged and Ruby shook her head.

"What? Are you really that disappointed? Honestly Red, were you expecting something different?"

"Yes, maybe a little emotion on your part," Ruby snapped.

"Emotion and empathy are not the same thing," Roman clicked his tongue in annoyance. "And honestly I never cared for the latter very much."

"Why not?" Ruby nearly yelled in frustration.

"Because the more you care about the world, the more it'll tear you apart. I'm not particularly invested in the concept of being life's chewtoy."

"So you hurt people."

"So I do what I want and don't give a rat's ass who has a problem with it," Roman spat, "Stop making it sound like I've made it my personal goal to ruin other people."

"Isn't that what criminals do? Ruin other people?"

"On occasion, yes. But that isn't a goal, it's a side effect."

"That's awful."

_"That's life."_

oooOOOooo

Roman had spent quite a bit of time watching Red sleep at this point, his lips formed into a thin frown and his brow knit together in contemplation. Admittedly his thoughts were centered mostly around the night before, which had ended on a less than happy note and had left Roman in a more agitated mood than on the days preceding it. He tilted his head as he continued to study the sleeping girl, his mind wondering why he had even cared what she thought of him. It wasn't exactly surprising that they didn't see eye to eye; Roman had a habit of not letting morals get in his way and…Ruby had always exhibited a strong sense of justice, even back in their previous, uncivil meetings.

He already knew that they would disagree. So why did he care that she had been so upset? Why should he care what she thinks of him at all? Ruby stirred from her spot on her bed and Roman averted his eyes to the bookshelf he was sitting indian style in front of.

"How long have you been there?" Red asked sleepily, yawning a bit as she lazily addressed the man with less spark than she had in their previous meetings.

"A while."

"What have you been doing…?"

"Well I visually organized the bookshelf by color for a bit and contemplated the idea of swiping your coffee cup for a small game of tiddlywinks."

"Sounds boring."

"Quite. Are you going to kick me out now? Because if you want I can just see myself out."

Ruby didn't answer with the expected growl or bitter 'please do' that Roman had anticipated, instead she slid off her mattress and shuffled up to him in silence. Upon reaching him, Red wordlessly dropped into a seated position and flopped her head down onto Roman's chest. He blinked, thoroughly unprepared as her forehead pressed against his breastbone to the point where he had to press his hands against the floor to hold himself up. "To what do I owe the chest flop?" he grunted in an attempt to downplay his surprise. A muffled mumble came in response. "Care to repeat that in a language I can understand?"

"Sorry."

Roman perked an eyebrow at the barely audible response as he looked down at her. "What for?"

"For…yelling at you. I should've known better than to get upset…I just…I can't understand that mentality…"

"I don't expect you to understand it," Roman brushed it off and averted his gaze from Ruby. "You don't have to apologize, Red."

"But I yelled at you about it…"

"And? My occupation is strongly opposed to your morality, I wasn't expecting anything different," Roman could feel a small lump in his throat beginning to form, making it hard to swallow. He hadn't expected an apology from her, especially considering how cynical he'd been in the process of refuting her logic.

"But…"

"Ruby." Roman slid a finger under her chin and lifted her face away from his chest. "Had the roles been reversed I probably would've reacted the same way. Don't worry about it." Ruby stared at him, looking positively dumbfounded until he clicked his tongue in annoyance and spoke again. "What?"

"Nothing, just…that's the first time you've ever referred to me by name…"

Roman did a mental once over of his previous sentence and realized that he had indeed called Ruby by her actual name. "Do you mind?"

"No, no it's just…you usually just call me Red…I guess I got used to it…"

Roman shrugged and looked away only to have the girl's small hand press against his cheek and bring his eyes to meet hers once more. He was about to ask what she wanted when she made her intentions clear by placing a small peck on his lips.

"I'm still sorry, you know…" Ruby mumbled as she pulled away.

Roman smirked and leaned in to kiss her again, breaking away from her only slightly at the end.

_"I forgive you."_

oooOOOooo

"Please explain how you are doing that."

Ruby giggled impishly as she cleared yet another level of the game she was playing on Roman's scroll. "Purely skill," she stated confidently as she continued playing. A notice popped up on the new level screen and Ruby's grin widened slightly as she presented it to Roman. "Beat your high score."

"Yeah yeah, big deal, good for you Red," he muttered, "Not like I play that time waster religiously."

"You know you're jealous."

"Actually I really could not care less," Roman stated flatly with a yawn.

Ruby looked over at the man and smiled at his disinterested frown, noting mentally that this was what he looked like when he was pouting. It was moments like this that made it difficult for Ruby—finding it in herself to hate Roman was challenging when he was simply sitting around in a pair of pajama pants and fiddling with wayward strands of hair in a childish attempt to hide his irritation. He looked too…human, if that was the right word. She snickered as his eyes fell on her again.

"What?"

"Nothing," Ruby hummed as she turned her eyes back to the scroll in her hands and moved on to the next faster paced level.

"You little—Red, seriously, it's a game, I don't care."

Ruby snickered again but didn't take her eyes off the screen. "Your pouty baby face tells a different story."

"I am not pouting like a baby," Roman said evenly.

"Did you just cross your arms?" There was a pause of silence and Ruby giggled again as she could almost feel Roman's eyes narrowing into a glare behind her. "Baby," she said with a smirk.

"My god, I think I've actually corrupted you in only five nights' time. That must be a new record."

"You wish, Torchwick. I'm just amused at your poor attempt to pretend you don't care."

"I don't."

"I beat your high scooore," Ruby sang and looked back at him as she cleared another level.

"Alright you little—" Roman lunged forward and grabbed Ruby at her sides, his scroll falling out of her hands as he pulled her back. He began tickling her and she laughed, struggling childishly in retaliation.

"H-Hey, stop it!" she choked out between laughs. "Fine, I give, you don't care!"

Roman smirked and ceased his attacks, pulling Ruby tightly into his arms in the process. "That's much better."

"But you're still a baby."

"You know, Red, I really don't wanna hear that from you," Roman murmured into her ear and Ruby just snickered in response.

"Whatever."

"Mm." Roman pressed his lips lightly against the side of her neck. "Your place tomorrow?"

"Yup."

Roman sighed, his breath tickling her skin.

_"See you there."_

oooOOOooo

_Rosewick trash Peeves reporting in, and first and foremost I really have to thank you all for your support with this. I may be over reacting, all things considered, but I never expected to amass this many watchers in as little as two days. So a different format this time, three dreams in a row since I'm sure by now you know the daytime consists of. I've always felt a little put off that pretty much none of the Rosewick titles I've previously delved in have touched on the polar opposite nature of Ruby and Roman's moral compasses, so I'll be bringing it up in this on occasion, like I did at the beginning of this chapter. I may ship Rosewick to hell and back but I refuse to neglect this difference because as far as I'm concerned, it's a pretty big barrier next to the opposing affiliations and all._

_p.s.- the get-to-know-you segment at the beginning is very headcanon heavy, especially on Roman's part. When I checked the wiki, none of this was listed anywhere, so I made up a bunch of answers that I found fitting. As always, fave, follow and review if you enjoyed this chapter, my ego is still hungry and honestly the reception this has received is making me want to continue churning out chapters at this speed (can't guarantee that my schedule will allow it, but nonetheless). Also last night I got a new tablet pen…so I might be able to draw a cover image for this story? Maybe a few small illustrations? Yeh. I guarantee nothing on that front, just a heads up tho. I'll let you know in following chapters if I do._

_p.p.s- 'killed by a bill collector' is Roman's euphemism for 'murdered by the goon of a loan shark'. Also completely headcanon._

_p.p.p.s.- Rosewick trash Peeves out until next chapter._


	4. The Sixth Dream

The Sixth Time was When they Made the Marks

After five nights of what he had self-diagnosed as some strange mental illness, Roman was beginning to adjust to his meetings with dream-Ruby each night. At this point he was too exhausted to fight the fact that he enjoyed them and since it was easy to brush off his good humor as simply having gotten a good night's sleep (which was in fact, not a lie) he made his way through the day without so much as a single hiccup. It probably helped that yesterday and the day before he had spent confirming that he still had no qualms with murdering the girl, as he'd spent them in a makeshift shooting range, decimating dummy after dummy while imagining Red's pretty little face. On the other hand it might've been how sinfully cute Ruby had seemed while she was teasing him last night that had made him so pleased.

Roman had since decided not to care if that was the reason. If he knew the Ruby in his head was nothing more than a dream then he shouldn't care whether or not he felt any attraction to her. Roman smirked at the memory of her giggling for what must've been the fiftieth time that day as he reviewed various underground sites in search of any small jobs he could busy himself with in order to pay the rent. The one greatest downside he'd found to working with Cinder was that he was far more strapped for cash than normal and needed a few covert operations of his own to keep his tiny underground kingdom from a fatal crash and burn. Junior had been generous enough to lend a dollar or two while Cinder had him overworked, but now that he had the time to spare, he'd rather rely on his own capabilities than Junior's—no offense meant to the club owner.

Roman heard the door to his office swing open and he glanced absently at his visitor before returning to his work. "Can I help you, Cinder?"

"I see you're back to finding petty crimes to commit."

"If it pays the bills," he replied shortly as he reviewed a well-paying theft request of a museum piece.

"Why not leave that work to the foot soldiers?" Cinder inquired smoothly as she glided towards his desk. "They're more…expendable."

Roman suppressed the urge to shudder as he felt Cinder trail her fingers lightly against his spine. "They're also looking to climb the underground social ladder. If I don't put forth some effort into proving that I've earned my stripes, I might be giving a hard headed newbie enough leverage against me to start a small mutiny."

"In other words this is simply a ploy to keep your men in line."

"That's one way of putting it," Roman replied with a smirk.

"Well make sure whatever you choose won't take long. I have work for you."

"I thought we were keeping a low profile."

"We are, for the next month or so. After that, we move forward with the plan. Prepare for the jobs I've given you while you wait."

Roman resisted the urge to growl in irritation. "And when are you planning on telling me what those jobs are?"

"I've already sent the details to your scroll, Roman," Cinder placed two fingers under his chin and forced him to look up at her. "Don't disappoint me."

Roman's brow furrowed at this and he pushed her fingers away from his chin. "I get it. I'll review the files later. In the meantime, I have some petty crimes to prepare for, so if you would please see yourself out." Roman gestured curtly to his office door before turning back to the museum request.

Cinder simply laughed softly. "I'll leave you to it then."

Roman waved lazily as she left, and when the door closed he let out a small groan. No matter how much he respected (and feared) Cinder on a criminal level, there was no love lost between them socially. At times it seemed like Cinder either wasn't aware of his distaste or enjoyed pestering him; the woman had showed up for a nice, pointless chat many a time before he'd gone to jail again. During her past visits Roman often thought to himself that he'd prefer having a heart to heart with Red, which, in light of his recent dreams, was a preference he considered confirmed. Roman smiled as he recalled how he'd held Ruby in last night's dream. On previous days he might've kicked himself for enjoying the feeling, but if Red was nothing more than a dream, he wouldn't bother.

After all, that's all she was. A dream.

oooOOOooo

"Why aren't you in your pajamas?"

Roman blinked and looked towards Red, who was now sitting up in her bed looking down at him. He lifted himself up slightly and glanced down at his clothes before shrugging and leaning back against the bookshelf. "Long work day," Roman muttered.

"Committing robberies pucker you out?"

"Preparing for robberies, actually."

"That's all?"

"You'd be surprised how much thought goes into organized crime, kid."

"Hm." Ruby slid off the bed and paced towards Roman. He followed her with his eyes, pulling her down into his lap as soon as she was in arms reach. "So what should we do tonight?" she murmured and yawned lightly.

"I have a few ideas," Roman smirked and leaned in to kiss her, his lips brushing hers only lightly at first before pulling her in deeper. He could hear her small stifled moan, and he pulled away a little to look at her. She was already blushing, her lips formed into a small, dazed frown as she whined slightly from the contact. Roman smiled and brought his hands up to straighten out a few strands of her hair before placing his appendages under her jawline, pulling her in for a string of kisses laced with a few nips and tugs at her lips. Red responded, leaning into his lips every time they pressed against hers and letting out small heated whines every time they came apart.

Roman was enjoying this. Admittedly before he started dreaming about Red, it'd been far too long since he'd felt this level of physical intimacy. And Ruby, despite doing very little to improve the kisses (whether that was to do with her being flustered or instead inexperienced, he didn't know), had a natural affinity for this. Yes, Roman probably could've kept this up all night; somewhere inside him the animal that craved Red's body the most had stirred, and while he managed the control to keep his hands firmly planted by her jawline, his lips dove for hers with the starved hunger of that inner beast. He could've kept going, but when Ruby pushed him away, he stopped, letting out no more than a small growl in his throat to show his disappointment.

"We shouldn't be doing this," she whispered breathlessly.

Roman sighed. "Why do I feel like we're about to get into another discussion about morals?"

"We're supposed to be enemies!"

"Aand here we go…"

"I'm supposed to hate you and you're supposed to hate me and instead we're, we're—"

"Making out?"

"—on the floor of my dorm room! My teammates could wake up any second and see me locking lips with you, and then we'd both be in so much trouble, especially if Blake was the one that caught us—"

"Blake?"

Ruby gestured quickly to the bunk with the faunus girl in it before continuing her rant. "Or Yang. Oh god, if Yang saw us…she'd probably call our dad about it at the first available moment! I'd be grounded forever!"

"Red…"

"I'd lose Crescent Rose and be forced to do the family housework for the rest of my life!"

"Red."

"Yang would probably treat me like her slave! I'd have to clean her room and wash her dishes and don't even get me started on the _laundry_—"

"Ruby!"

Ruby stopped ranting and looked over at Roman as he ran a hand down the left side of his face in exasperation. "Do I even need to tell you that you're overreacting? Your team mates aren't going to wake up. It's only a dream."

"A dream?" she sputtered. "How are you so sure?"

Roman mentally reminded himself to imagine a less frantic Ruby in his next dream. "Because nothing we do here remains in effect after it's over," Roman sighed. "I had a hunch a few nights ago that I just confirmed tonight, before you woke up." Roman pulled out his scroll and flicked through it until he reached a certain game. "Take a look."

"The…game I played last night?"

"Take a look at the list of high scores."

"I'm…not on there."

"Exactly. Because you only beat the high score during a dream. It reset to what it had been before as soon as the dream ended. In other words, I'm still the champion." Roman smirked as Ruby pouted at him.

"I'd still beat your high score if I was awake."

"Of course you would, Red."

The two sat in silence for a moment before Ruby spoke up again. "So this is a dream?"

"Yeah."

"So that means you aren't actually real?"

Roman's brow knit together in confusion at that. "Pretty sure I'd be real in my own dream, thank you. You're the one that isn't real."

"I am definitely real! And this is my dream, Torchwick!"

Roman perked an eyebrow at this. "Oh really?"

"Why else would you be in my dorm room?"

"Because I have an active imagination."

"That's a laugh."

"Now I'm a little offended. Do you realize how creative you have to get to avoid the police?"

"It's still my dorm room. An exact replica."

Roman frowned at that. This conversation had added a whole new level of complicated to the situation he found himself in. "Well," Roman cleared his throat, "either way, the fact stands that it is just a dream."

"Prove it."

Roman groaned and sat up a bit. His eyes flicked across the bookshelf behind them until he caught sight of a fat black marker on the second shelf. He picked it up and twirled it in his fingers a little before opening it, causing Ruby to lean away from him a little.

"What are you doing…?" she said cautiously, causing him to let out a small chuckle.

"Well I could leave you with a nice goatee and a monocle, but I think I'll limit myself to this…" Roman held Ruby's arm steady with his left hand as he traced his initials onto her shoulder, winning him a quizzical look from the girl.

"What does that do?"

"Well when you wake up in the morning—assuming you are real like you say you are—and it's not there, then you'll know it was a dream. And when you come to my place tomorrow night, and it's still not there, you'll remember again."

"So it's like a reality checker."

"If you want to call it that."

Ruby stared at him for a moment before snatching the marker from his hand and undoing a portion of his shirt. He perked an eyebrow at the action.

"Red I know you're used to seeing me shirtless, but does my clothing tonight really upset you to the point where you want to undress me?"

Ruby snorted. "Ha ha, very funny. You're wearing a long sleeve shirt. It's easier to get to the skin on your chest than your shoulder," she explained as she began drawing on the left side of his torso.

Roman closed his eyes and mentally traced the marker strokes Red made in his mind. "Your initials?" he guessed as he opened his eyes and looked down at her

"You used yours," Ruby shrugged.

Roman sighed. "Do I really need this?"

"Just in case it helps."

"Fine," Roman mumbled as he lifted a hand up to fiddle with Red's hair. "Something tells me I'm not getting any more kisses like that for a while."

Ruby averted her gaze from him and folded her arms over her chest, her silver eyes giving off a look of guilt as they fixated downwards. "I-I shouldn't have given you any kisses to begin with," she mumbled. "I'm not supposed to…"

"You aren't supposed to like me," Roman muttered.

Red's gaze connected with his once more, her eyes watery and her face formed into a look of confusion. "I'm sorry," she whispered lightly as her vision fell to the floor once more. Roman frowned and leaned over to kiss her on the forehead.

_"I know."_

oooOOOooo

Ruby awoke slowly the next morning, her hand rising to her forehead and pressing gently against the spot where Roman had kissed her. No, where Roman would've kissed her. It was a dream, she reminded herself. Her fingers traveled down to her lips, tracing them as they tingled with the burning sensation left over from kisses that had never occurred. Ruby frowned deeply as she felt part of her brain wishing they had. Most of it, actually. Her own emotions were beginning to betray her. Ruby's eyes glanced out to the room beneath her momentarily, her breath shallow as she attempted not to alert her teammates to her consciousness. The effort had been in vain, for the room was empty, void of all life but herself as her friends left her to happily sleep in while they found something to occupy themselves with.

Ruby's gaze fell down to her right shoulder, noting that it was clean, bare, with not a trace of the black marker scrawl of the initials "RT". Ruby absently brought her left hand to the spot it would've been, her head flopping to back to her pillow as she squeezed her eyes shut and begged herself to stop wishing it was still there.

_Don't wish he's more than a dream. Don't let these feelings grow. Kill them before they surface. Kill them before they destroy you._

Ruby could feed herself the logical answers until she was blue in the face, yet as soon as the thought of him entered her brain she'd soften, thinking of the fake memories that less than a week of dreams had spawned in her. Her heart was yearning to feel his arms around her when her mind knew that by daylight they'd sooner be his hands around her neck.

_Don't let him under your skin._

But he was already making his way beneath it, tugging at her strings like a well-trained puppeteer.

_Don't let these feelings grow._

Ruby rolled over to face the wall and resisted the urge to scream. If any of her friends were nearby she didn't want them to run to her rescue, she could fix this on her own. She had to.

_Kill them before they surface._

Ruby curled up into the fetal position, her hands covering her face as she told herself not to cry.

_Kill them before they destroy you._

Ruby should've listened to herself. She should've. She knew that. She wouldn't give in without a fight. She wouldn't let him win. But that didn't change how she felt, or the fear beginning to take hold. The hunger in her heart telling her not to hold back.

_They will destroy you._

She felt like she was already drowning.

oooOOOooo

_Rosewick trash Peeves reporting in. Thank you again for your extremely generous support, I'm glad you're enjoying and…um, sorry, my hand slipped on the tail end of the chapter and I wrote some angst…anywho. I admittedly find it humorously ironic that I got a review critiquing the presence of a kiss in each dream just as I was writing a chapter with more kisses in it than all the others dreams combined. That being said, thank you for the critique and I understand where you're coming from. I admittedly am a little kiss-happy and have moved along this budding relationship at an alarming pace. I will do my best to slow their progress down. Not send it backwards just…make it slower. Admittedly I'm still trying to decide if I want to perform any time skips in this. I've found painting one day to the next somewhat…gratifying, it that's a good way to put it._

_As for the reviewers that expressed concern and/or interest in Ruby and Roman's first IRL meeting [post-dream] and the discovery of the dreams by their friends/acquaintances…_

_…_

_…_

_…_

_:)_

_Patience makes the fruit grow sweeter._

_Rosewick trash Peeves out until next chapter._


	5. The Seventh, Eighth, and Ninth Dreams

The Seventh Time felt Confusing (the Eight and the Ninth felt better, and worse)

Ruby rubbed her eyes groggily as she made her way to Roman's bedroom. She had spent most of her waking hours confined to her bed, trying to convince herself not to get attached to this when she was starting to realize that the attachment had already grown. Highly convenient, she thought as she stepped through the open doorway that led to yet another one of Roman's bed chambers, where the man in question was surprisingly already awake and sitting on his windowsill with a cigar between his lips.

"Hello Red," he spoke up without turning to her, and Ruby gave him a questioning look as she sat down on the bed.

"What are you doing?"

"City watching. Mostly to confirm to myself that I'm not awake."

"How does looking out a window prove this is a dream?" Ruby asked as she unconsciously placed a hand over her right shoulder.

"Because Vale is never this quiet after sunset," Roman noted as he blew out a puff of smoke from his cigar. "I'm assuming the mark is gone?"

"Yeah."

"There's a marker on the night stand if you want to make a new one."

Ruby glanced back to the small table behind her and retrieved the writing utensil before lifting off the bed and walking towards Roman, who glanced at her absently when she approached. Ruby uncapped the marker in silence and found the spot where she'd last written on him, retracing her initials as he sighed and let out another puff of smoke.

"I meant on you."

"This is better," she said firmly, her eyes planted on the mark while she traced it with one finger.

"Ruby."

She looked up at him, confusion setting in as her eyes met with his solemn expression. "Yes?"

"Please don't do that. I'm only so capable of restraint."

Ruby blushed and pulled her finger away from his chest, pausing a mere moment before flopping down onto him, making him grunt from the sudden application of weight.

"Didn't I just say something about trying to restrain myself?"

"Shut up, I had a long day," Ruby whined into his chest.

"You and me both," Roman muttered.

"Hm? Why was yours long?"

"Work," he noted curtly as he snuffed out the remainder of his cigar. "I have a risky job to prepare for that I'm not really looking forward to."

"Isn't committing crime risky in general?"

Roman gave a small shrug as he peeled Ruby off his chest and walked towards the bed. "A good criminal calculates the risks and prepares for every possible outcome, but some jobs are too risky for that kind of preparation. I prefer avoiding that type of job, when I can." Roman fell down onto his bed and Ruby followed him back, sitting down carefully after his rather graceless flop.

"So…why don't you just…not do the job?"

"Complicated," he waved off quickly, "What was long about your day? Did you have a fight with your teammates or something?"

"Actually…" Ruby blushed sheepishly, "I spent most of the day in bed…"

Roman perked an eyebrow at that. "And this made it a long day because…?"

"I was thinking about this all day."

"Ah."

"Yeah."

Roman rolled onto his side and took the marker from Ruby, uncapping it and lazily writing his initials on her shoulder once more. "So what do your friends think of these dreams?" he asked absently.

She scoffed a little. "I thought you were under the impression that I wasn't real."

"I am," Roman shrugged, "I'm simply indulging the fantasy for the sake of curiosity."

Ruby paused, her eyes narrowing thoughtfully. "They don't know about them."

"You've kept them a secret? How naughty."

"Would you like to explain to your friends and older sister that you've been having dreams about the criminal mastermind you were trying to thwart? Oh but they aren't nightmares, they're actually rather enjoyable, and you're always in your PJ's together and you've kissed a few times and even made out on the floor of your dorm room and there just might be a possibility that you're starting to like him even though you keep telling yourself it's a bad idea, what's so hard about telling them that?"

"Artfully explained Red," Roman remarked with a smirk. "I see your point. If I cared as much as you I'd probably be concerned with their reactions as well."

"So you've told your friends?"

"No," He breathed, "My one friend has been too busy with work to bother. Not that I know how to explain it without sounding like I've gone insane."

"Oh."

Roman brought a finger up to trace the ink strokes on Ruby's shoulder before leaning over to press his lips lightly against the mark. Ruby squirmed a bit as he did; her mind told her to shy away from the action where her heart told her to return it. The confliction had her split evenly down the middle, which was unsettling, especially considering her normal preference for siding with her heart. She let out a chuckle as he pulled away. "I thought you were practicing restraint tonight."

"If you legitimately think that kissing your shoulder is the pinnacle of what I'd like to do with you tonight then you are much more innocent than I gave you credit for," Roman mumbled.

Ruby blushed in response. "So why are you restraining yourself?" she glanced over at him, his eyes opening slightly to look at her.

"Because of the many crimes I would willingly commit, sexual abuse is not one of them."

"…Why?"

"Because I've never found the concept very appealing."

Ruby frowned and shifted closer to Roman, her eyes searching his somewhat vacant and drowsy visage. "But you take from people all the time," Ruby murmured, "What would make it different?"

"A million things. It's not really something I put much thought into, I just don't like the idea. Can you stop asking about it now?"

"But you don't even think I'm real."

_"That doesn't change anything for me either way."_

oooOOOooo

Roman skimmed the words on the page briefly and attempted to turn to the next soporific page before Ruby caught his wrist and forced him to drop the page, causing him to let out a short irritated groan as he looked down at the girl leaning her back against him.

"You did not finish reading that," Red stated accusingly.

"How do you know?"

"Because I didn't finish reading it."

"I may have skimmed," he admitted airily, "But I got the basic gist, that's good enough."

"Oh really?" Ruby's eyes narrowed." So what's the story about so far?"

"Some girl with a magic slipper. I fail to see why we're reading these, Red. They're for _children_."

"It's my turn tonight!" Ruby pouted. "We agreed! I get to choose the activity when we're in my dorm room, and you decide it when we're in your apartment! And I wanna read!"

"Couldn't you have chosen something a bit less childish? These were literally written for a first grade reading level."

"These are my favorites!"

Roman perked an eyebrow. "So you're still on the reading level of a first grader?" he smirked impishly as Ruby's face turned nearly scarlet with embarrassment.

"No!" she refuted, "I can read above my grade level just fine!"

"So why do you like these stupid fairy tales?"

Ruby squirmed a little in what Roman assumed to be discomfort, her cheeks flushed as her gaze glued itself to the floor. "Because…they're the reason I chose to become a Huntress…"

Roman's eyes widened in surprise. "Huh. So these are your inspiration?"

Red graced him with a hesitant nod.

"Well that explains…pretty much everything. From your aggravatingly strict moral compass to your exaggerated concern for everyone. I understand it all now."

Roman smirked as she glared at him suspiciously. "Are you teasing me?"

"Maybe a little."

Red grumbled and looked away again as he chuckled and kissed the side of her head. "Meanie," she muttered.

Roman shrugged. "I find it unrealistic, that's all."

"You find what unrealistic?"

"Thinking you can make the world a better place."

"Why?"

"You ask me that question far too often."

"You're the one that makes me curious, don't blame me."

Roman sighed.

_"Life is far too cruel to let you change its nature."_

oooOOOooo

Ruby smiled at her quickly dwindling pile of cards and reminded herself to thank Roman for choosing a game that relied heavily on speed. After stealing a quick glance at him, she snorted and amended that reminder to thank him _tomorrow night_, seeing as his expression had contorted into a distinct scowl while Ruby sat there, beating him at the game he had taught her no more than an hour ago.

"Remind me to avoid fast paced competitions with you, Red," Roman muttered as Ruby slapped her hand down on the smallest pile of cards between them.

"You're just sour because you're about to lose the bet," Ruby smirked, winning an even colder glare from him.

"And because I'm actually trying to beat you," he added shortly, "but I'm losing even though you've known the rules for less than an hour."

Ruby shrugged. "Well my semblance is speed."

"You know, I wish I had known that before I agreed to that bet."

"And why is that?"

"Because I really don't like showing people my right eye."

"It's not that big a deal."

"It is to me."

Ruby finished resetting her side of the game ad Roman shortly followed, and one short round later, Ruby had relinquished all her cards to Roman. She grinned impishly. "I woooon," she sang.

"You are a very sore winner, you know that?"

"Am not," Ruby pouted, "A bet's a bet. Now show me what's under the bangs!"

"Fine, I will," Roman closed his eyes and lifted his bangs, revealing the location of his right eye briefly before letting his hair fall over it again. "Happy?"

"Your eyes were closed that doesn't count!"

"You never said my eyes had to be open."

"It was implied!"

"Hm. Guess I missed that."

"Romaaaan!" Ruby whined, and he smirked as she tackled him, forcing his back against the mattress. "Stop cheating!"

"I'm not cheating," he chuckled in response, fending off Ruby's feeble grabs at his bangs with ease. "You asked me to show you my right eye, and I did."

"That's not what I meant!" Ruby huffed in frustration.

"Honestly, Red, is it really that big a deal?"

"Yes."

Roman sighed, one hand hovering over his bangs as he stared up at her. "I can't believe I'm letting you get away with this…fine, go ahead and look."

Ruby tilted her head in response to his sudden relaxation and crawled over top of him hesitantly after a short pause. Roman kept his gaze away from her until she lifted a hand up to push away the hair in front of his right eye. Within moments of registering what she was staring at, she spoke up. "You're—"

"Noticeably blind in my right eye? Yes. Ugly little bugger, isn't it?"

Ruby frowned as she studied the milky white iris staring back at her. "Why is it…just your right eye?"

"I haven't a clue, Red. I was born with it."

"So you…hide it?" Ruby lifted her hand away from Roman's bangs and he pushed them back over his eye.

"It's just as useless either way."

"It's a cataract, right?"

Roman nodded slowly.

"Couldn't you find a doctor to get it fixed?"

"I'm not trusting a single underground doctor with my eyeball, thank you."

"Then why don't you just go to a normal…" Ruby trailed off as she won a hard stare from Roman, and her mouth snapped shut abruptly. "Oh." He snorted and her brow furrowed with irritation. "What?"

"You just barely stopped yourself from asking a wanted criminal why he wouldn't visit a government licensed doctor, and all you have to say for yourself is 'Oh'."

"Shut up."

Roman laughed and wrapped his arms around Ruby as she pouted and attempted to ignore how nice it felt to be brought a little closer to him. "You're really too cute when you pout like that," he murmured into her ear.

"I'm not cute, I'm angry!" she refuted, only to win a small smirk and a peck on the lips in response.

_"Of course you are, Red."_

oooOOOooo

Roman twirled his glass of liquor in his hand absently, the music of The Club drowned out from his ears as he waited patiently for Junior to finish chatting up whatever high end party goers had just entered his business. Roman sighed and fiddled with the rim of his hat as he twirled the top of his cane with the other hand. He hadn't been sitting in this inconspicuous little corner booth for much more than five minutes, but he was feeling more than a little restless, considering the information he was waiting to receive.

Roman took another gulp of liquor just as Junior's conversation ended, and as the man began walking over Roman felt something tap him on the shoulder. He turned to see Neo holding her parasol out with one hand and a small note out with the other. He took the note from her a quickly read the neat penmanship.

_You've been on edge the past few days. What's wrong?_

"Long story, Neo," Roman replied, "I'll explain later."

Neo quickly jotted down another note and passed it to him.

_Does it have anything to do with why we came to see Junior?_

"It has everything to do with that," he stated bitterly.

_I hope you know what you're doing._

"I don't."

_Oh joy._

"Neo, stop littering my club and use your damn scroll to speak," Junior said gruffly as he sat down opposite of Roman in the booth. Neo responded by pulling out her scroll and typing up another note.

_Bossy._

"I don't wanna hear my boys complain about your mess," Junior stated curtly, "Last time you left over fifty discarded pieces of paper in this booth and one of my men still hasn't forgiven you for it."

_Sucks to be him then._

Roman chuckled at the budding argument but made a gesture at Junior to get his attention, thus thwarting the possible one-sided yelling match. "Do you have the information I requested?"

"Yeah. Didn't take too long to get my hands on. Don't ask how I got it though."

"You know I won't."

Junior dropped a moderately fat file down on the table and sighed, a frown marring his features. "Are you going to explain to me why you need this, Roman?"

"I'll explain its relevance to both of you after I've had a look," Roman remarked as he pulled the file towards him. He flipped open the file, eyes scanning the table of contents for all he could ever want to know about team RWBY. Junior had certainly out done himself. It was almost a shame that Roman only needed a few bits from it. He began flipping through the file quickly, skimming past birthdays, combat abilities, semblances, and family relations until he found the one, most important part of this file. A picture of their dorm room. Roman studied the picture for no more than a millisecond before swearing under his breath and leaning his head in his hands. An exact replica, Ruby had said. He was hoping that she'd been wrong. Sadly that wasn't the case.

From the patched up curtain to the hazardous bunk beds, everything in the room depicted here had been accounted for in his dreams, a feat of replication that would've been impossible for him to manage, active imagination or not. Then there was the fact that Ruby had indeed surprised him before in ways he neither would've guessed nor held preference towards…and her insistence the other night that she was the dreaming one. He hated admitting it to himself, but it seemed that the Red in his dreams was the genuine article. Oh how he wished he'd found this out before he'd surrendered to what was now a very strong attraction to her. Roman flicked the file closed in one small motion and send it back towards Junior, whose face had twisted into a look of concern.

"Something wrong, Roman?" he asked slowly.

Roman let out a small, cynical huff. "Yes," he breathed, "Something is very, very wrong."

oooOOOooo

_Rosewick trash Peeves reporting in, and again, I must thank you all from the bottom of my heart for your support. I know at this point I should be able to at least believe that you're all over here paying attention to me but right now it still feels pretty unfreaking believable. And just to clarify to the number of you that have thanked me for this…I'm just satisfying my Rosewick hunger and frankly, after the last update I was so pleased with the reception that after I shook off my early morning fatigue I was pretty much happy dancing my way through work. If it means anything, I despise my job with every fiber of my being and I had only gotten four hours of sleep the night before. This occurrence is highly irregular._

_Now regarding a few things about the chapter before I bring up anything that stuck out to me in reviews...to start, Roman's one-sided blindness and Neo's muteness are completely personal headcanons that I will believe until proven otherwise. Neo has not yet spoken in the show or even made a single, audible sound and…Roman's right eye has never been seen clearly. I always found it kinda odd that his weapon is cane shaped gun when he relies on one eye because your aiming accuracy usually decreases when you have bad depth perception (which is a thing that you have if you rely on one eye). So I made his right eye permanently useless, thus giving more reason to why he's such a good shot when relying on Cyclops vision, among other things._

_Now to things that I wished to respond to in reviews…_

_On the subject of having cause a couple of you to start shipping/ship Rosewick more… :} JUST AS I HAD PLANNED._

_Regarding any possible inspiration to write your own Rosewick fic because of this story: oml I would read the shit out of your fanfiction, there isn't enough Rosewick in my life I need more._

_Specific shout out to SilverstormXD…nice save. We should be friends._

_In regards to the possibility of this fic sparking a rise in popularity for Rosewick…oh you have no idea how much I'd love that._

_Regarding the mention of tumblr…yo man, if I were writing these author's notes on tumblr, y'all would be spammed with happy gifs at the end of each chapter, not gonna lie._

_Quick clarification that Roman and Ruby will continue to appear in each other's dreams regardless of whether or not they want to…and that's all I've got to say really._

_Fave, follow or review if you enjoyed this chapter, and I will be giddy. You people have inspired me to keep up this update speed (again, can't guarantee I'll be able to maintain this speed but nonetheless)_

_Rosewick trash Peeves out until next chapter._


	6. The Tenth Dream

The Tenth Time they felt Defeated

Ruby glanced up at Yang vacantly, having heard her name but nothing else of her sister's sentence. "Yes Yang?"

The blonde groaned at the question. "I said we should pick out an outfit for you tomorrow night!"

"What for?"

"For Friday! Aren't you meeting up with your friends from Signal in downtown Vale Friday night?"

"Oh. Right." Ruby contemplated this for a second as she lifted her milk carton to her lips and drank from it. "Nah, I'll just wear my normal outfit."

"Ruubyyy!"

"What? My normal outfit's fine." Ruby took another gulp of milk just as Weiss spoke up.

"So you aren't going to dress up for your crush like any other girl would?"

Ruby spat out her milk onto a very disappointed Yang. "My WHAT?!"

"Yang was just telling us about him," Blake spoke up softly as she held out a napkin to the milk-soaked blonde girl, "Says you've had a thing for the same guy since you were thirteen."

"Yang!"

"Oh come on sis! I didn't reveal any names. Besides, he's coming into Vale to see yoooou…" Yang poked Ruby playfully and the girl blushed and flailed madly.

"We're just friends!" Ruby refuted, "That's all!"

"If you're just friends, then why are you blushing?" Weiss asked.

"Well…I-I did like him back at Signal, but I don't anymore, and Yang wasn't supposed to tell anyone about it!"

"Heh, oops."

"So you don't like him anymore?" Blake asked.

"Well, um…uh…" Ruby's eyes darted around and Weiss spoke up again.

"It's settled then. We'll help you choose and outfit after we finish with our schoolwork together."

"Weiss!"

oooOOOooo

"So what's wrong?" Junior spoke up. "You said you would tell us."

Roman sighed and pulled two devices out of his pocket, winning a strange look from Neo and Junior.

Neo typed another note on her scroll. _What are those for?_

"They're used to jam the audio frequencies on bugs and wiretaps," Junior explained.

"One blocks out ninety five percent of all bugs…" Roman murmured as he turned the device on, "and the other blocks out the missing five percent. Junior helped me acquire them a few years back."

"I'm a little confused as to why you're using them on me though," Junior stated begrudgingly. "You don't actually think I'd sell you out after all these years, do you? And Neo here can barely function her own scroll, I highly doubt that she could properly function a wiretap."

"Oh I know neither of you would purposely help someone spy on me," Roman stated nonchalantly, "You're both loyal to a fault. It's Cinder I don't trust."

"Ah…so the boss can't know about this, huh?"

"Partner," Roman corrected Junior curtly.

"The only reason you started helping her is to pay her off for helping you break out of jail. She's your boss."

"Oi…think what you will of it Junior, alright? Do you want me to tell you what's going on or not?"

"I'm waiting."

"Okay…" Roman spun his cane around in his hand and considered the various ways to actually explain to his long-time friend what had been occurring each night for the past nine days. "This will probably sound insane," he began, soliciting a sigh from Junior.

"Oh boy…" the man grumbled as he covered his eyes with one hand.

Roman ignored him and turned to Neo, who was staring at him with a quizzical expression. "You remember Red, right?"

Neo typed out a response quickly on her scroll.

_That's what you call that Ruby girl, right?_

"Correct."

"I already don't like where this is going," Junior muttered.

"I haven't even gotten to the insane part," Roman remarked.

"So enlighten me, Roman."

"Well, I've been having these…dreams lately—"

"Dear god…" Junior muttered.

"I know, it sounds crazy, just hear me out. They've been occurring for a little over a week, and Red, or as you may know her, Ruby Rose…" Roman flicked open the file again and pulled out a picture of the girl, "has been present in all of them."

"So you've been dreaming about the kid you told me you wanted to kill a few months ago."

"That's the complicated part," Roman added bitterly as he pulled out the picture of Ruby's dorm room. "This should be the first time I've seen this room, right?"

"Yes…?"

"It isn't," Roman noted with a frown. "I've seen this room about four times before now."

"Should I even bother to ask where?"

"In the dreams."

"Right. You sound like a lunatic, Roman."

"I know."

"So why is this room's existence such a problem?"

Roman groaned and placed a hand over his eyes. "Because if it really exists then there's a strong possibility that the Ruby I've been getting visits from is actually Ruby and not a figment of my imagination."

"You know it just occurred to me that you didn't mention the exact nature of these dreams."

Roman looked up at Junior, holding his stare for a few short moments of silence before Junior nearly growled with frustration.

"Roman, please tell me that you did not just admit to adding seduction of a minor to your long list of offenses while the government wants you on _death row_."

"Might've been an accidental slip up on my part."

"Roman!"

"What? Do you think I asked to suddenly share dreams with the girl? It just happened one night, I've had no control over it since."

"Did you—"

"No I didn't sleep with her," Roman snapped. "I haven't even seen her naked." Roman felt a tap on his shoulder and turned to Neo, who'd been observing the two impatiently, as her lack of a voice left her without the ability to get a word in edgewise.

_How many times has this happened so far?_

"Nine times…" Roman replied slowly, frowning as he realized how small the number sounded. It felt like it'd been longer.

"It took nine times for you to consider telling your best friend about this?" Junior inquired with an edge of irritation in his voice.

"You were busy, and I was still trying to find a way to explain it without sounding like I'd lost my mind."

"You failed miserably on that last part."

"Well I'm starting to question my own sanity, considering this," Roman gestured to the dorm room picture quickly. "It's not exactly what one could call a usual occurrence. That being said…" he leaned back in his seat, "I still can't be certain that she's been having the same issue yet."

Neo tapped Roman again and held out another note. _So what will you do?_

He smirked. "I honestly haven't figured that out."

_Do you really like her?_

"Unfortunately, yes. This stays a secret between the three of us, alright? No one else can know, especially Cinder."

Junior gave a small nod and Neo typed up another note.

_Don't worry, I won't tell mom on you._

Roman snickered at that. "I am so glad that you have my sense of humor, Neo."

oooOOOooo

Ruby seemed a little off to Roman at the moment, not in the sense that she wasn't Ruby but rather in the fact that upon her waking he received a quick "Hi Roman" and a peck on the cheek before the girl strode over to her dresser and began rummaging through it. His brows knit together as she threw uniforms and dresses across the room carelessly, seeming rather frantic to find…something.

Roman leaned back on the end post of the Blake's bed and crossed his arms as he watched Red. "Do I even want to know what you're doing?"

"I'm looking for a good outfit to wear on Friday so that tomorrow I don't have to look for one with my team," she replied so quickly that Roman barely made out the words.

"Why can't you do it with your team? And what's so important about Friday?"

"My friends from Signal are coming to visit on Friday and one of them is my former crush and my friends think I still like him so they're trying to get me to dress up and I must avoid the girl talk at all costs."

"Remember to breathe, Red," Roman remarked dryly.

Ruby ignored him as she held out pair of dark red leggings and a casual black sweater dress with red lining. "Does this look okay?"

"Why does it matter?"

"Because if I don't find something nice now, Weiss and Yang will force me through a million outfits tomorrow until they find a nice one."

"I'm failing to see an issue with this."

"Girl talk, Roman, that's the issue," Red snapped, and Roman's eyes narrowed as he tried to recall when she'd started calling him by his given name. Yesterday night, if his memory was in order. Nine nights shouldn't be this hard to keep track of, he thought to himself.

"What exactly is wrong with 'girl talk'? Actually, what do you even mean by that?"

Ruby groaned and hid her face in the sweater dress. "It's this highly uncomfortable thing that girls do where they ask you things about the boy you like or fantasize about romance scenarios for you. I've been victimized by them because of Yang ever since I got my first crush."

Roman snorted. "How terrifying. That outfit's no good, it's too modest. Doesn't draw enough attention to your body."

Red lifted her head from the dress and discarded it on the floor before searching her dresser again.

Roman eyed the garment thoughtfully. "You aren't going to put it away?"

"Nope."

"Isn't that a bit messy?"

"I'm dreaming, it'll still be clean when I wake up in the morning."

"Right. So why exactly is talking about this boy such a big problem for you?"

"Because I don't like him anymore."

"And…?"

"And Yang and Weiss think I do."

"So…?"

"So they'll come up with a bunch of romantic get together scenarios and gush over them or something. Or worse, they'll create an action plan to get us together. And possibly even follow through with it."

"How is that a problem if you don't like him anymore?"

"Because if they pester me for too long…I might let it slip that I like you instead," Ruby murmured, her frantic movement slowing abruptly.

"So you're worried that you'll be forced to tell them about these dreams," Roman clarified.

Red hesitated a moment before giving a small nod. There was a stillness in the room that clung to both of them for a long moment, the silence deafening as they both sat still as statues. Roman's eyes glued themselves to Ruby's back, his mouth formed into a hard line.

"You can't keep them a secret forever you know."

"I don't want to tell them yet."

"You should," Roman stated curtly. "They might be able to convince you to stop falling for me."

Red turned to look at him, the pain of his sharp response evident in her eyes. "I'm…I'm not sure that I want to be convinced anymore…" she admitted, her voice cracking slightly with the confession.

Roman swallowed hard as he stared into her eyes, his lips set in a deep frown. "Don't say things like that," he replied, mentally kicking himself for the hoarseness of his voice.

Ruby stared back at him, looking thoroughly lost as she searched his expression. She straightened up from her kneeling position by the dresser and shuffled over to the bookshelf, picking up the black marker they had been making use of and shuffling back to him. "I…I don't know how long these dreams are going to keep happening..." Red sat down on Roman's lap and uncapped the marker. He looked away from her, cursing himself internally for not wanting to move her.

"At this point I've gotten to thinking that they might just last for the rest of my life," Red began tracing her initials on the upper left side of his chest.

"Red…"

"I mean, we have no way of knowing, right? Maybe I'll see you in my dreams like this forever or maybe only until next week. If they ended after tonight, maybe I'd let them know about it. But…I don't think they will."

"You know this isn't healthy, Red," Roman murmured as he turned back to look at her. "You can't keep this sort of thing a secret without suffering for it. And the longer you wait, the angrier they'll be."

"I don't care if it isn't healthy."

Roman was somewhat taken aback at that statement. He made eye contact with her again, and she held out the marker to him.

"I can't pretend that I don't want you here anymore. It hurts too much."

"Ruby…"

"Don't," she placed a finger on his lips to thwart his words. "I already know how stupid this decision is. I've been kicking myself for it all day. Just…three nights ago…what we did before I pushed you away…can we try that again?"

Roman's voice caught in his throat at her last question. He knew he should stop this. The fact that Ruby was real made everything complicated. The fact that she had these feelings for him made it worse. He should've pushed her away. If he had decided to be rational in that moment, he would've. Sadly whenever he was with Red, his propensity for rationality seemed almost completely shot. Roman swallowed hard and took the marker from Ruby's outstretched hand, uncapping once more and scrawling his initials on her shoulder. As he finished the mark and discarded the marker, he brought his other hand up to brush back a few strands of her hair.

Ruby pressed her cheek against his open palm, and Roman felt his chest tighten in the most uncomfortable fashion. God, she made this so much harder on him. He hesitated slightly as he pulled her closer to him, his lips brushing across hers for a moment before pressing hard against the soft skin with all the hunger he'd held back on the past three nights. He shouldn't be doing this, he reminded himself as he tangled a hand into her hair. He shouldn't want her this badly, he scolded himself as he held her firmly against him by the waist. Roman was well acquainted with these reasons, but it seemed that in the heat of the moment he had no intention of listening to himself.

He pulled away from her momentarily, his half lidded eyes fixated to her flushed face as he brought his hands up to her jawline. He placed another small kiss on Ruby's lips, soliciting a tiny whimper from the breathless girl. Roman chuckled and placed their foreheads together, smiling bitterly as he felt her arms wrap themselves over his shoulders.

_"You are going to be the end of me, Red."_

oooOOOooo

_Rosewick trash Peeves reporting in. Allow me to grace you with eternal screaming as I thank you all once again for your support. If I was surprised with the reception on the first chapter then imagine my surprise now. Not even a week later and the numbers have jumped to 40 reviews, 32 favorites, and 52 follows. Still Dreaming has easily become my most popular title, and specifically the most popular title on this account. I cannot thank you guys enough._

_Now onto the most recent reviews. One of you asked me if I am responsible for the new cover art. I am. Same person who asked about the cover also told me to get more sleep. Yes sir/ma'am/lemon/potato, will do [in fact getting some sleep is the reason I'm uploading this chapter later than usual]. Regarding art for this story, after I finish the full color on the cover I will be open to requests for rosewick [just keep them kid friendly, okay?] and I'll also doodle up a few of the scenes from here for my own personal enjoyment. If you have any requests you can leave them in the reviews or pop into my tumblr askbox [search up alicewithabowtie or Wanderings and Dreams, Madness and Mayhem and you'll find me]._

_Also I kinda realized a little late that my headcanon for Roman and Junior being long-time friends is somewhat thwarted by the fact that when Junior talks about Roman he refers to him as if he's a stranger…sidestepping that by saying that if Junior really was friends with the wanted criminal he'd probably be willing to lie about it. There. Problem solved. As always, fave, follow or review if you liked this chapter, you know I love hearing from you all._

_p.s.-anyone got some good ideas on what to name Ruby's friends from Signal? I may or may not add them into next chapter but I'm at a loss for what to call them._

_Rosewick trash Peeves out until next chapter._


	7. The Eleventh Dream

The Eleventh Time was Quiet

Ruby hummed a little as she busied herself with a small doodle of Crescent Rose in the middle of Roman's chest, writing notes here and there at spots that needed tune ups or replacement parts. Roman had started working with something on his scroll shortly after her arrival, and despite casting occasional amused glances down at her handiwork, he had done nothing to prevent her from using his torso as a canvas. That is, he didn't say anything until she started frowning at his chest, her silver eyes squinting at a detail that she was thinking of modifying.

"I wasn't originally going to ask, but is there a reason that I'm sporting a rather detailed picture of your ridiculously large gardening tool on my chest?"

"Crescent Rose needs a tune up pretty soon, so I'm mapping out the problem bits."

"Ah. Is something wrong with it? You've been making that face at your doodle for nearly five minutes now."

"No, nothing's wrong, I'm just trying to figure out if I want to fix it with larger magazines."

"Come again?"

"I'm trying to see if I can fit more ammunition into one round."

Roman stared at her as if she had three heads.

"For the gun part."

"Oh…that's right…" Roman mused. "I nearly forgot about that bit. Where did you even get that thing?"

"I made it," Ruby said proudly as she began working on her drawing once more. In her peripheral vision she could see Roman put his scroll down.

"You made it?"

"Uh huh."

"Aren't you only fifteen?"

"What does that have to do with anything?"

"It's a pretty advanced weapon design for a fifteen year old."

"All the students at Signal make their weapons."

"Ah. Well," Roman reached out a hand to straighten out Ruby's bangs. "You did a good job with it, considering that you're annoying as hell when you're wielding it."

Ruby gave him a wry grin and lowered her chin down to his chest. "Thanks."

"You're welcome. Now are you done using my chest as a drawing board?"

"Heh, yeah."

"Good. Come here," Roman replaced his hand at Ruby's jawline and pulled her head gently up towards his. She smiled a little wider once their lips were only a few millimeters apart, leaning closer on her own to deliver a tiny peck to his lips. Roman smirked in response and flipped her onto her back, causing her to giggle a little.

"You can be such a tease sometimes, you know that?" He kissed her neck lightly as she wrapped her arms around him.

"I'm not a tease," Ruby giggled before he rose up from her neck and kissed her gently on the lips.

"Yes you are."

"Am not."

"Are too."

"Am not!"

Roman grinned and kissed her again, this time slowly, their lips only parting a fraction of a second before they met for another kiss. "So where did you decide to meet your friends tomorrow?" Roman whispered as he broke away.

"One of the malls downtown," Ruby replied, pausing only a moment before speaking one more. "You aren't invited."

"You wound me."

Ruby snickered. "Come on, if I can't introduce you to my roommates, what makes you think I can introduce you to other friends?"

"These friends don't actually know me."

"Your name and face are all over the news, Roman."

"Oh, that's right," he chuckled lightly, "I nearly forgot about that."

"No you didn't."

"Shh, now now, Red, just allow the pretense," Roman pressed a finger against her lips as she giggled. "I am somewhat concerned about this former crush though."

"You shouldn't be. It's been ages since I've seen Flynt, I might not even recognize him when they all visit."

Roman perked and eyebrow at this. "So his name is Flynt, huh?"

"Yup."

"Hm. Your age?"

"Younger by two months. Speaking of age, how old are you again?"

"Twenty one," Roman murmured as he pressed his forehead against hers and smirked.

"Yet another reason why you can't meet my friends, even if you weren't a wanted criminal."

"I still fail to see how a six year age gap is a problem in a consensual relationship."

"Because of laws."

"You know how I feel about rules, Red," Roman smiled a little wider, "I love breaking them."

"I still don't agree with that you know."

Roman chuckled and kissed her again.

_"I know."_

oooOOOooo

"So are you excited?"

Ruby stole a quick look at Yang as she continued lacing her boots. "Of course I am! I haven't seen everyone in months! We can talk about our weapons and what's been happening at Signal, and all the cool things I've gotten to do since coming to Beacon!"

"Not that silly," Yang snickered. "Aren't you excited to see Flynt again?"

Ruby blushed a little, more out of embarrassment than anything else. "I'm excited to see everyone, Yang."

"Come on, Ruby, I know you've been thinking about him. You've had that dazed lost-in-thought look so many times in the past few days that I've lost count. And then there are those times when you'll go from staring off into space to blushing for no reason, just like you're doing right now!" Yang pointed at her sister triumphantly, as Ruby was indeed blushing profusely and biting her lip in an attempt to keep her from blurting out that it wasn't Flynt she was thinking of. She had admittedly thought about Roman a little too much since she and her friends planned this get-together.

"It's not like that," she managed to mumble as she busied herself with the laces of her boots.

"Right. Well tell me all the juicy details tonight, I have to know everything," Yang said with an eager grin plastered across her face.

"Okay," Ruby sighed as she stood from the bed and looked herself over in the mirror. Yang and Weiss had still managed to force her through a million outfits (seeing as how she hadn't finished looking with Roman) and the resulting outfit happened to be a pair of black leggings and a snug fitting red strapless dress. Ruby had insisted on wearing a black jacket over it, much to Yang and Weiss's dismay, but at the very least the style was classy, or so Weiss had said. "I'm off!" she announced happily as she nearly pranced out of the room, making her way through Beacon's campus as fast as she could to the entrance, where her friends were waiting.

"Ruby, over here!"

Ruby turned to the left at the entrance and saw a familiar girl with dark brown hair running towards her, followed closely by a dark skinned boy and a red haired girl. "Olive!" Ruby yelled back just before the girl in question tackled her.

"How've ya been?!" Olive asked as Ruby fell flat on her back.

"Good…better before you tackled me…" she managed to squeak.

"Oh. Oopsie,"Olive let out a guilty chuckle and detached herself from Ruby.

"Heya, Ruby," the dark skinned boy waved casually, "How's everything?"

"Didn't I just ask that question?" Olive cut in.

"You're the only one who heard the answer," the red haired girl noted. "Flynt and I couldn't hear Ruby very well with you on top of her."

"Oh. Sorry 'bout that Amber."

Ruby snickered at the exchange. "I've been fine. I've missed you guys. How's everything back at…" Ruby trailed off suddenly as she noticed that Amber and Flynt were holding hands. She glanced at Olive questioningly and the girl responded by blatantly avoiding eye contact and throwing her arms behind her head, which was Olive's usual way of saying 'you've got the right assumption'. Ruby turned back to Amber and Flynt in surprise. Oh. That was a new development. "Um…how are things back at Signal?"

Flynt grinned at her question. "Everything's great."

oooOOOooo

Roman never thought he would stoop as low as to follow someone like this. He felt like a bloody stalker, but he had what he considered quite a few decent reasons for watching Red in secrecy. The first was that being seen in public during the early evening was currently a little too dangerous for his tastes; the second was that Ruby had told him not to come. But his biggest reason for even bothering to come in the first place was to permanently confirm his suspicions about the real Red and his dream Red being one and the same.

So here he was sitting in a back alley outside the shopping mall closest to Beacon, watching Ruby and her friends catch up at an eatery just outside the regular shops. Roman frowned as he caught a better view of the group. A girl with dark brown hair styled almost exactly like Ruby's sat next her, speaking very animatedly about god knows what, much to her friends' amusement. A dark skinned boy sat next to the energetic girl, and Roman immediately came to the conclusion that he was Flynt. Odd, not quite what he'd expected. Nor was the girl sitting on the other side of him, considering that the redhead had been leaning her head on the boy since they'd sat down.

Roman's eyes narrowed at that, his frown deepening as he turned his gaze back to Red. Hell, she looked slightly uncomfortable from where he was standing, he kind of wondered how those two hadn't caught on. Probably too lost in the lovesick puppy stage to notice. Roman heard his scroll ring lightly and checked the caller ID. It was Junior. Roman swore under his breath and picked up the call.

"Make it quick, Junior, I'm in the middle of something."

_["Are you really? Because one of my boys just called me and said he could've sworn he watched you duck down into an alley near one of Vale's malls. Conveniently the one closest to Beacon."]_

"And?"

_["You're watching her right now, aren't you?"]_

"…How do you do that?"

_["I've known you for years, Roman, I think I have a good enough idea of how your brain works to know when you're doing something stupid."]_

Roman chuckled a bit. "I suppose you got me there."

_["So am I allowed to ask what sparked your sudden desire to become a stalker?"]_

"I'm just confirming my theory once and for all, Junior," Roman muttered, "I'm not going to follow her around all night."

_["And?"]_

"And what?"

_["How's the theory holding up?"]_

"It's holding," Roman said bitterly, "unless I somehow managed to subconsciously guess that Red was going to visit a shopping mall with a few out of town friends today."

_["So that means…?"]_

"In all likelihood she's having the same dreams. The only other way to confirm is to meet her in person while I'm awake."

_["Good luck on that one."]_

"Thank you. Any other reason you called?"

_["Yeah, you have a job to do in fifteen minutes at the Vale Museum."]_

Roman swore under his breath and Junior continued.

_["And judging by that reaction, you completely forgot."]_

"Yes. Thank you for reminding me."

_["Always a pleasure, Roman. Now get up off your ass and go."]_

"Eloquently put."

_["Shut up. Alright, I gotta go. Don't do anything too stupid before the next time I see you, got it?"]_

"Yes mom."

_["And cut down on the sass. Later, Roman."]_

"Later, Junior."

Roman smirked as the call ended and pocketed his scroll. He'd have to do something to thank Junior after this. He turned away from the eatery and walked back down the alley, sighing a little at the scene he'd just witnessed. So Red was really there in the dreams. He contemplated this briefly and began to wonder.

Did she see him as anything more than a dream?

oooOOOooo

_Rosewick trash Peeves reporting in and yet again I have to thank you all for your lovely reviews and especially for your very helpful name suggestions, it made these OC designs a lot easier. Specific thanks to tumblr user **water-and-war** for the name "Olive", **Diaz Chatnoir** for the name "Amber", and **Wolfe Mollenkopf** for the name "Flynt". Honorable mentions go out to **Mauisse Flowers**, **Supernova126**, and **Dreamer-Sara** for other awesome suggestions. I wish I could have used them all, sadly an army of OCs coming to visit Ruby from Signal would've been a tad unrealistic. So I've gotta warn you all (like I have more vaguely in the past), chances are on this coming Monday and Tuesday, I will not be able to update within my normal time range as I am doing a college visit to the university I will be attending come January. Considering that this is also simultaneously a get-together with a long-time friend/honorary sister, I somewhat doubt that I'll even have the time to write._

_Speaking of college, should this fanfic still be going come January [and specifically, come college] my updates will slow as well. Just letting you know now. Now regarding the most recent reviews…_

_Regarding Dreamer-Sara's offer to help me design the OCs…thank you very much for the offer darling, however the only thing I really struggle with when it comes to original characters is naming them [I royally fail at naming them]. To WarmasterCain55 regarding your curiosity…-winks-. And to the most recent reviewers that have started shipping/ship Rosewick more because of me: WELCOME TO MY ARMY [jk hi I'm a dork let's be friends]_

_p.s.—to the sweet Guest reviewer that called me a good sir: I am a lady, thank you._

_p.p.s.—if any of you have any interest in original fiction works, my sister and I have fictionpress accounts listed under The Hatter Girl and Melody Hallows, respectively, and I'm sure we would both appreciate it if you wanted to read a few of our original works. Yes, I know, shameless self promo, but honestly, our fiction works are supposed to take precedence and mine are starting to die on me [I will keep A Dreamgiver's Tale alive as long as I live, that being said]._

_p.p.p.s.—Rosewick trash Peeves out until next chapter._


	8. The Twelfth and Thirteenth Dream

The Twelfth Time was Jarring (the Thirteenth felt stranger)

Ruby watched Flynt and Amber from a distance, her arms folded over her chest as she leaned on a wall of the store they were perusing. Olive was standing a few feet away from her, searching a t-shirt rack for any design she found funny.

"How long have they been like that?" Ruby finally spoke up, gaining Olive's attention immediately.

"Hm?" Olive glanced up at Ruby in time to watch her friend nod in the direction of Amber and Flynt. "Oh. About a month and a half. Trust me, they were even more obnoxious when it started."

Ruby recounted the past month in her head. "Why am I only just learning about it now?"

Olive's dark green eyes darted back to her friend, her expression one of surprise, and maybe a little pain. "I wanted to tell you Ruby," Olive murmured, "Amber said you'd take it better like this. I didn't want to go behind her back."

"So you let her go behind mine?"

"No I—" Olive groaned, "You know that you, Amber and Flynt are the only people who can tolerate me for more than five minutes. If I'd told you when she was keeping it a secret I would've risked my friendship with both of them. And with you away at Beacon…I wouldn't have anyone."

Ruby swallowed hard as she stared at Olive. "So she caught you between a rock and hard place, huh?"

Olive nodded meekly. "You aren't angry with me, are you?"

Ruby shook her head in response.

"I'm sorry…I know you had a thing for Flynt—"

"It's not that that's bugging me," Ruby interjected, "I don't have a crush on him anymo—"

"You don't?"

Ruby glanced over at Olive's highly confused frown. "No…I don't…"

"But you've been making your crush face all night."

"My—what in the world is a crush face? I don't have a crush face!"

"Yes you do, you do that thing where you're all silent and staring off and then you'll just blush out of nowhere—see you're doing it!" Olive pointed at Ruby childishly as she was, once again, blushing and biting her lip to keep from blurting out anything that had to do with Roman.

"I-It's got nothing to with Flynt, okay?" Ruby stammered, her eyes darting downward and gluing themselves to the floor.

"You have a new crush?" Olive nearly shouted before quieting herself at the tail end of her question. "As your hair twin, I insist upon knowing who."

"Olive!"

"Okay, fraternal hair twin. Come on, I wanna know! I probably don't even know him, so what's the harm?"

"Actually you probably do know him," Ruby muttered bitterly, "well know of him, at least."

"Oh…is it a celebrity crush?"

"What? No!"

"Then who?!" Olive began clinging to Ruby like a little toddler. "Teeeeeellllll meeeeeee….."

"Oliiiiive!"

"Pleeeeeeaaassse!"

"I can't, okay?"

"Whyyyyyyy?"

"It's complicated, okay? I haven't even told my team about it!"

Olive pouted at that but ceased her clinging. "Fiiiine…" she mumbled in defeat.

Ruby blinked before awkwardly patting her on the back. "Sorry?"

"It's okay…"

oooOOOooo

Roman didn't know why he'd felt compelled to join Ruby on her bed. He barely trusted the thing to hold Ruby's weight alone, let alone his weight combined to that, yet something about her right now seemed…off. She didn't look at him as he joined her, and Roman frowned a little before reaching his arm around her waist and pressing a small kiss onto the side her neck.

"Amber started dating Flynt over a month ago," she began quietly as he pulled her closer to him.

He kept silent, partially because he had no idea what to say and partially because he figured she probably had more to get off her chest.

"And she made Olive keep it a secret from me."

"She didn't want you to know?" Roman thought back to how adamantly the redhead he'd seen had clung to her new boyfriend, finding it a little odd that she'd told the energetic girl not to say anything.

"Not until they visited apparently," Ruby stated bitterly, "They thought I'd take it better if they told me in person. Funny how they didn't actually do that." There was a small pause before Ruby continued. "Amber was the first person I told when I got a crush on Flynt—second, technically, if you count Yang—but she was the first person outside of my family that I trusted with it. So why…" Ruby faltered a little and looked over at Roman, her eyes watery with tears on the brink of falling. "Why was I the last to know about her feelings for him?"

He frowned at that, using his thumb to wipe away the first tear as it fell. "Red…" Roman paused a moment as he scoured his brain for possible words of comfort. Not giving a damn about most people had a lot of upsides—skill at consoling people you _did_ care about wasn't one of them. "Everything will be okay…"

"No it won't!" Ruby refuted as she shifted away from him. Roman mentally kicked himself repeatedly for even bothering to speak.

"Ruby…"

"Everything's not okay, alright?! My best friend started dating my former crush behind my back and told my other best friend not to breathe a word of it to me and the only reason I'm upset it because she chose not to tell me! But when I got home and told my teammates they all sent their sympathies because she stole him from me even though that isn't what I cared about! I had to listen to them verbally bash her for stabbing me in the back when I just wanted to know why she didn't tell me first! And the only person that knows why I'm really upset is you and you're just a figment of my imagination!"

Roman's frown deepened at Ruby's last sentence. He supposed that answered his question from earlier. "What if I wasn't a figment of your imagination?" he nearly covered his mouth after he unconsciously blurted out the question. He hadn't intended on bringing it up this soon, but now it was too late to take it back, considering that Ruby had already turned to look at him, her eyes widened with shock as her breath escaped her lips in short shallow sobs.

"T-That's impossible…" she murmured, her broken voice suffixed by a small hiccup as Roman raised a hand to her face and wiped away a few more stray tears.

"Admittedly that was my first thought too," he replied flatly, "however, shockingly enough, this haphazardly furnished dorm room of yours does indeed exist." Roman considered mentioning the fact that he'd further confirmed by checking up on her whereabouts that day before coming to the conclusion that it would sound far too creepy.

"Prove it," Ruby managed to say in a somewhat stronger voice.

"Hm?"

"Prove that you're real."

"Well that's one of those things that's a little difficult to prove in the middle of dream, Red…" Roman sat up on the bed and mulled over the possible ways to confirm his existence to her. Part of him felt like simply turning around and saying he had been joking about being real, but sadly that was not the part he was listening to. "Ah, I know," Roman smirked as he turned to Ruby. "Why don't I tell you something that I couldn't tell you about unless I wasn't a figment of your imagination?"

"Such as?"

"Such as what I did this evening. It'll probably be in the news in a few days' time, but until then there's no way you could know about it, right?"

"You want to tell me your most recent criminal exploits as proof?"

Roman shrugged. "If it works."

Ruby sat up and rubbed the tears away from her eyes. "Alright," she mumbled, "what sort of terrible thing did you do this evening?"

"I robbed the Vale Museum."

Ruby paused, her brow knit together in confusion as she looked up at him. "Why?"

"Wealthy client wanted a piece of a popular exhibit for his own personal gallery, so I relieved the museum of it."

"…What was the piece?"

"An 'ancient' Ursa skin," Roman replied nonchalantly as he leaned back on his elbows, and he heard Red snicker. "What?"

"You can't keep a dead Ursa's skin, they decay too quickly."

"Well I know that, and you know that, but my client doesn't know that and I intend to keep it that way. Especially since he paid me quite generously for it."

"Really? How much did he pay you?"

"Enough to pay the rent of all my apartments for six months and then some."

"That's a lot, isn't it?"

"I currently have ten apartments so yes, big check, lots of zeros."

"Hm. I guess I'll have to check the news tomorrow to see if you're telling the truth," Ruby sniffled a bit and lowered herself down onto Roman's chest. "Though…I'm pretty sure you being real makes this worse, doesn't it?"

Roman chuckled as he brought a hand up to pet Red's hair. "You're telling me."

"Roman."

"Yes?"

"Thanks for trying to make me feel better."

He smiled and kissed her gently on the forehead.

_"Anytime, Red."_

oooOOOooo

Ruby knew by now that despite her normal preference, listening to her heart in these dreams was a very stupid idea. The only thing that made the action more stupid was namely the fact that she had just learned how very real Roman likely was. It was bad enough that she had been falling for a ghost of him, but actually _him_…now that was a whole new level of bad. But apparently her heart had shut off any amount of warning against people like him, for despite her new knowledge the first thing she did upon entering his dream-apartment was lay down on top of him, soliciting a small grunt on his part.

"Oi…" he spoke up in a strained tone, "Wake me up and warn me before you do things like that…"

Ruby planted her face flat onto Roman's chest, her arms resting at her sides as she spoke up. "I am a horrible human being."

"…Is it safe to assume that you watched the news today?"

"Yea."

"And the robbery was a featured story."

"Yea."

"So how does that make you horrible?"

"Because I still wanna kiss you."

There was a pause of silence before Roman broke into a small fit of laughter. Ruby glared up at him, but it did little good as her glare just seemed to make him laugh harder. "Dear god, Red," he choked out, "Sometimes you simply have the most irrational ideas!"

"It's not irrational! I'm not supposed to like kissing you!"

"You're preaching to the choir on that one."

Ruby fumed a little as Roman's laughter died down and he brought a hand up to caress her cheek. "You're supposed to be my enemy…"

"And you're supposed to be mine," Roman smiled, "Sadly I've had a limited amount of self-control since I figured out that you were real. At least not enough to break things off."

"How long have you known…?"

"For sure? This dream would happen to be the fourth since the day I confirmed it."

"So…"

"I learned on the same evening that you decided to stop restraining your feelings for me," Roman noted with a smirk, "And much to my dismay, kissing you is addictive."

Ruby blushed a little at that. "So you already considered ending it…"

"Yes."

"Why didn't you…?"

"You stated the reason yourself, Red." Roman pressed a finger under her chin and guided her face up to his. "We have no idea how long these dreams are going to last. I'm not patient enough to restrain myself forever." He pulled her into a small, soft kiss that caused Ruby to let out a muffled whine. "Especially when you react like that," he breathed as pulled away.

"We shouldn't," Ruby stammered as Roman brought both hands up to cup her cheeks. She kept her eyes shut, not daring to look at him for fear that she would lose composure.

"I know."

Roman brought his lips back to hers and she responded much more eagerly than she should have, throwing her arms over his shoulders and pulling him closer to her. This nightly relationship in all its briefness could be the death of her, and yet she didn't want to end it. She didn't want to acknowledge that he was real either. She needed to think about this, carefully, in the passing days.

Roman broke away from Ruby momentarily and flipped her onto her back, kissing her once more before pulling away and resting at her side. She turned to him, a frown marring her features as he placed yet another kiss on her forehead.

"We need to stop this…" she murmured weakly.

Roman's response came in the form of a bitter laugh.

_"It's only a dream."_

oooOOOooo

_Rosewick trash Peeves reporting in and holy hell you guys have no idea how much fun Olive was to write. Thank you all for your generous reviews, and due to a large quantity of reviewers saying they wanted to see Ruby's reaction to finding out Roman is the genuine article, I did precisely that. Next chapter may come after a time skip, as Ruby and Roman's romantic relations over the course of the next few dreams will remain at the same strained level of liking each other and loathing themselves for it. Any requests on scenes you'd like to see happen between them [either in the dreams or irl] I can consider incorporating into later chapters if you'd like. I may have a lot of conversation ideas for these two but I definitely don't have enough to fit the whole story timeline._

_Now regarding the reviews that stuck out to me…_

_To the person who asked when Roman and Ruby are going to find the cause of these dreams…um, to be frank, I myself have not figured out the cause, I just always liked the theory of shared dreams and wondered what would happen if the circumstance were to arise consistently and in a lucid fashion. _

_To the person who wasn't sure if they should like my fic but do anyway…well, not to be conceited but I haven't gotten any negative feedback on it…that said, Rosewick as a RWBY pairing is not the most popular [hint hint it's referred to constantly a trash ship]_

_To the person who said my Roman and Ruby moments were sweet enough to give them diabetes…no regrets there :}_

_To SilverstormXD…_

_…._

_?_

_To Electric Eclectic, yes, Penny, I'm your friend._

_To the comment appreciating stalker!Roman, you heard him, he was just confirming his theory [psssshh he was stalking her]_

_Also to the comment suggesting that I read Trust, Love, and Betrayal…I've honestly considered it on multiple occasions [admittedly my usual reasons for not doing so were either because I was busy and at one point or another I thought the story might've been abandoned because of the date of its most recent update at the time] I'll see if I can find a moment to read it._

_Now then._

_Rosewick trash Peeves out until next chapter._


	9. The Twenty Seventh Dream

The Twenty Seventh Time

It had been two weeks since he'd told her. Two weeks since they agreed to ignore the impending consequences like blatant idiots. Two weeks since he had begun binging on smoking breaks to ease the stress of knowing how screwed over he'd be when Cinder began moving again. Roman was somewhat disgusted with how good he and Ruby had become at playing pretend. By daytime they acted like the worst of enemies and by nightfall their affair continued, hidden from those who would see it wrong for them to care about each other.

For the most part the dreams they shared remained happy, the problems of the world nearly forgotten as they shared affection, played around, and discussed everything under the sun except for Roman's job and Ruby's friends. There had been a few arguments, often when one of them shined a light on the elephant in the room, forgetting momentarily that there were things they'd never agree on. Roman had become more agitated day after day, as despite his ever growing affection for Red, in nine days he knew it would all go to hell. As soon as Cinder's plan pressed forward, the rift keeping them on opposite sides of the playing field would rip them apart like tissue paper.

Roman blew out one last puff of smoke and snuffed out his cigar as Neo entered his warehouse office. The woman paused before typing up a small note on her scroll.

_Thinking of her again?_

Roman sighed and glanced out the window of his office to see Cinder, Mercury and Emerald chatting about god knows what. "Not here, Neo," he replied quietly as he looked back at her. She quickly deleted the note and typed another.

_Oops._

He let out a small laugh at that. "It's fine," he breathed as he walked back to the table he was using to lay out the jobs Cinder had given him. "Did you need something?"

_Cinder wanted to make sure you were making progress in the preparation for your first job._

"Why?"

_She must've noticed you stopping to light yourself a cigar every five minutes. It's kinda hard to miss._

Roman sighed and sat down, leaning his elbows on the work table. "Tell her to stop being concerned, I'm nearly done preparing and I'll be finished long before nine days' time."

_It's not enough anymore, is it?_

"What isn't enough?"

_The dreams. You want to see her when you're awake._

"Didn't I just say that now isn't the time or place?"

_Fine. Are we going to The Club later?_

"Yeah."

_Buy me some ice cream?_

"Anything for your secrecy, Neo," Roman smiled.

Neo smirked as she put away her scroll and left the office. Roman sighed after she left, realizing that she was all too right—he did want to see Red right now, despite how impossible and imbecilic that would be. He vaguely wondered if Ruby felt the same way before brushing it off as an irrelevant thought. They both lived lives far too different to simply run into each other without causing trouble.

oooOOOooo

It'd been two weeks since she'd begun spiraling. Two weeks since the reality of her shared dreams with Roman became clear. Two weeks since she was stupid enough to ignore the consequences and continue falling for him. Two weeks of the best and worst moments of her short life. Ruby had started learning to hide it; by day she played the innocent, awkward Huntress in training within the halls of Beacon—same as she still was—and by night she played that of the innocent, awkward teen falling hard and fast for the wrong man. She disgusted herself with how easily she could feign hatred for Roman when instead she felt something akin to love. She still hesitated at the thought of saying that to him. It was probably too early.

"Ruby, are you okay?"

"Hm?" Ruby looked up to see Yang looking at her with concern written all over her face. "Yeah, I'm fine. Why?"

"Well you've been unusually quiet lately," Weiss spoke up, "Not that I really mind that change, but it's starting to get creepy."

"I've just had a lot to think about," Ruby replied sheepishly. It wasn't a lie—by day there was school and the investigation of the White Fang to help Blake with, and by night…there was Roman.

"Okay then," Yang shrugged and continued eating her lunch.

"Blake, um, did you find out anything else about of the White Fang?" Ruby spoke up again.

Blake shook her head in response. "Nothing more than the fact that they've been too quiet lately."

"Maybe we managed to stop their plans," Yang offered.

"Or maybe they're just riding the heat out," Weiss said pointedly.

"That's what I'm afraid of," Blake murmured. "Ironwood and his troops return to Atlas in a week. It'd be like opening a floodgate for the White Fang. Security would be at its weakest in the first few days after their departure. And then there's Torchwick to consider…"

Ruby stiffened a little at the mention of Roman, but she let it slide off her back. "What about him?"

"No one's seen him in over a month, not since he escaped prison," Yang noted, "Or if they have seen him they've been keeping quiet."

"I don't get it," Weiss remarked, "Prison escapees don't just vanish into thin air. Especially when they're on death row."

Ruby resisted the urge to cringe—that was right, Roman had the death penalty on his head. She kept trying to forget that.

"He's probably riding out the heat too," Ruby murmured.

"Probably."

Ruby drowned out the sound of her friends' voices as she turned her attention to the window and watched the relatively bleak skyline. The rain in Vale had been falling for a few days, enough to make a muddy mess of the scattered grassy islands and rivers of a few streets. Vale had been dreary with the end of the Vytal Festival, what with Sun and Neptune returning home, upcoming exams and rumors that Ozpin might be resigning. Beacon had gone quiet to a near eerie extent. Ruby couldn't help but shudder at the thought that the events that occurred at the start of the Vytal Festival were just a preview of what was to come, for when whatever was coming started, she would find herself against Roman once more.

And she wasn't sure she could face him as an enemy any longer.

oooOOOooo

Ruby knew something was upsetting Roman when she entered his bedroom. He always smoked when something was wrong. There was the off occasion when he'd try to light a cigar in the midst of a pleasant moment (more enjoyable that way, he'd say), but that was different. During those moments he'd at least stay on the bed with her, often opting to cuddle or chat or crack jokes about something small and embarrassing that Ruby would blurt out a little too often. When he was upset he'd gravitate towards the window, with one arm folded over his chest and the other poised at his lips, holding the lit cigar steady as he kept his eyes trained on the artificial night below.

At one point in the past two weeks an argument had gotten so heated that Roman pulled a pack of cigarettes out of his night stand and stomped over to the window, muttering all the while about how "no one had ever pushed him to the point where he needed them". Incidentally he'd eaten through half the pack before they'd settled the issue. He'd been rather pleased to find them unused the next morning, remarking the following night to Ruby that their purpose was strictly work-stress related.

Right now, at least, Roman hadn't broken out his secret stash. Ruby stopped momentarily at the nightstand to pick up the black marker they still used on a nightly basis before slowly closing the distance between them.

"Do you want to talk about what's bothering you?" Ruby murmured as she uncapped the marker and scrawled her initials in their usual place.

"No," Roman stated curtly as he kept his eyes facing the dark, uncharacteristically empty streets of Vale.

"Is it work related?"

"Some of it."

"What's the part that isn't about work?"

"Ruby…"

"You can tell me if it isn't about work, right?" Ruby brought a hesitant hand up to Roman's cheek and he reluctantly turned to look at her. "Please Roman."

"You're pushing," he hissed through clenched teeth.

"And sometimes I need to with you," she countered, "Otherwise you'll just sit here moping."

"I'm not moping."

"You're doing the Roman-equivalent."

He perked an eyebrow at that and blew a puff of smoke into her face, making her cough and sputter madly.

"Roman, that's gross!" Ruby turned away from Roman momentarily as she continued her coughing fit. She could hear him chuckle at her predicament.

"Serves you right for pushing," he murmured lightly. Ruby felt his fingers under her chin as he brought her face to his and kissed her gently on the lips. "Have a little patience with me, Red."

"I am patient with you," she pouted and he simply smirked and kissed her again.

"Not patient enough. Now then…" Roman leaned down and hoisted Ruby into his arms bridal style, soliciting a loud squeak from her as she clung to him for dear life and hid her face in the crook of his neck. She kicked her legs a little in retaliation.

"I-I can walk on my own!"

"I don't trust you to," Roman breathed as he made his way for the bed. The heat in Ruby's face spread from ear to ear like wildfire as he placed her down on the bed gently.

"You just love teasing me, don't you?" Ruby pouted.

"It is fairly enjoyable, yes," he smirked he crawled over top of her and kissed her once more, tugging at her lower lip slightly as he pulled away. He grinned impishly at her for a moment before leaning back in for more, and Ruby kissed him back with a passion that grew with each new meeting of their lips, her arms wrapping around his neck as his fingers tangled into her hair. After a few long moments they came up for air, both flushed and breathless as Roman wandered down to nip at her neck. She whined a little at the feel of his teeth grazing her skin, her eyes fluttering shut as her neck craned back instinctively.

"I swear Red, if I had any less restraint, you would not have clothing on right now," Roman growled.

"Thought we agreed to wait until I was ready," Ruby whispered.

"We did," Roman replied as he pressed a soft kiss into her neck to let her know that he'd calmed down. "That being said, your reactions at times make it obscenely hard for me to behave myself."

"I can't help it…"

"Try?"

"Mkay…"

Roman sighed and pressed another kiss onto her neck as he laid down beside her and let one hand travel down to her waist. They sat there in silence for a moment; Ruby busied her hands by straightening out his hair and he fiddled with the creases of her night shirt until he decided to speak once more. "May I ask you a somewhat odd question?"

"Sure."

Roman paused a moment before speaking again. "Have you ever wished this was real?"

Ruby's brow knit together in confusion. "I thought it was…?"

"Not the part where you're really here and so am I. That's not what I meant."

"So what do you mean…?"

"Have you ever wished this wasn't a dream?"

Ruby felt her body go rigid as her gaze shot towards Roman, a small lump forming and attempting to clog her throat as she opened her mouth to speak. "Constantly," she managed to squeak, her voice barely a cracked whisper as she realized just what Roman was upset about. It was the inevitable truth that it would be entirely impossible for them to see each other anywhere but here.

Roman frowned and brought his hand up to caress her cheek. "Then let's meet somewhere," he murmured, causing Ruby's head to whip over towards his smirking expression.

"We'd be caught!"

"Not necessarily," Roman replied evenly, "I spent quite a lot of time thinking this over today, and I've thought of a few places that might work."

"Are you sure?"

"Ninety five percent."

"I'd prefer it if you were one hundred percent sure."

"And I'd prefer it if you were naked right now," Roman said bluntly, "but hey, I can live without that."

Ruby glared a little at him for the comment but he simply shrugged his shoulders. "Fine. Where would we meet?"

"The club that my buddy runs might work. He could lend us the keys to one of the lockable back rooms and we could make use of strategically timed entrances and exits."

"Any other places possibly not on the shady side of town?"

Roman smirked and pulled himself off the bed, beckoning Ruby to join him at the window. Her brow furrowed in confusion as she stood and followed him, leaning past him a little to glance out at the eerily still version of Vale below. "There's a park two blocks down that alley," Roman noted as he pointed to a small lane to his right. "Summershade Park if I'm remembering the name properly. The place is completely uninhabited during constant rain."

"So…?"

"There's a rather large willow tree at the edge of it. Really big bugger. When it rains the leaves form an unbroken canopy that'll keep out the rain until it decides to come down in buckets."

"Are you actually suggesting that we meet under a damp willow tree in the middle of an abandoned public park?"

"Only place on the not shady side of town I can think of. Unless you had a better idea. Besides, we can only use it when it rains a little."

"It's supposed to continue raining tomorrow," Ruby offered, "Lighter than the heavy downpours we've been getting too. Maybe I can manage to swing by after I get back from class and finish some of my homework?"

Roman smirked and leaned in to kiss her on the forehead.

_"See you then, Red."_

oooOOOooo

_Rosewick trash Peeves reporting in and right away imma just apologize up front for posting this chapter 14 hours later than usual. I had work :( Anywho. Thank you all again for your very generous reviews, you have yourselves to blame for the unnatural speed at which I crank these things out. That said, with the Holidays and college fast approaching for me I will have less time to work on these, which means more late uploads and possibly a few short hiatuses. In other news, I may or may not doodle up a few Roman sketches with listed headcanons and the same for Ruby, I'm not sure yet even though the urge is very present._

_And now, regarding the most recent reviews…_

_One of you asked what my favorite RWBY pairings are…and my blatantly honest response is…Rosewick. Honestly my feelings towards the other pairings of RWBY, both crack and canon are very neither/nor with the exception of one otp [Rosewick] and a few notps [CinderxRoman and CinderxRuby tbh I just can't—no]. I'm generally the easy-going multi-shipper/occasional orgy-shipper[I am guilty of having a few armadas] type, it takes a lot for me to really latch onto a pairing and even then I can get really picky about what I want to see from that ship._

_For those of you who once more expressed your desire to see these two meet irl…coming soon to a chapter near you… ;)_

_To the person who wanted Roman to punch Flynt…um. Flynt didn't actually do anything wrong to Ruby and doesn't need to be punched…? Yeh. Ruby wasn't upset about losing Flynt to Amber because at that point she didn't like him anymore. That drama was averted. The reason Ruby was upset was because she didn't know Amber had even liked Flynt until a month and a half after they started dating. She felt betrayed by Amber, not Flynt. Flynt was completely oblivious to Ruby's crush when she had it. He's just as oblivious to her as Jaune is to Pyrrha._

_Message to Tritan: Feel free :)_

_Last comment to one of the newer followers, JefftheKiller14…my sister and I always knew that you'd be Rosewick trash, Jeffie :)_

_Rosewick trash Peeves out until next chapter._


	10. The First Meeting

The First Meeting

If one looked up the definition of a nervous train wreck, Ruby was rather certain that at the moment, she'd be the accompanying picture. She'd had more concern for the weather than she did her studies, often scrawling only a few words before glancing out the window to make sure that the rain had remained steady. Weiss, Yang and Blake had all noticed, as had team JNPR, and the group had pushed a few questions as to the cause of her skittishness, but she brushed it off as uneasiness about exams. Jaune and his team had accepted that, however her team was still very skeptical. She didn't blame them; her excitement was far from contained.

The thought of meeting Roman at the park shouldn't have made her so happy. After all, the endeavor in itself was a risky one, and with how fidgety Ruby had been all day her friends were sure to at least try following her. But that didn't change much for her. She wanted to see him, regardless of the consequences. This was why, by the time Ruby finished the first half of her homework, she'd immediately left the library under the guise of 'going on a walk'. With dusk quickly approaching, Ruby strolled leisurely down the halls of Beacon. She stopped by her locker momentarily to retrieve Crescent Rose—she might not have expected trouble but she didn't want to be caught unarmed (or draw attention with the deployment of her locker to her location). Upon reaching the main entrance, Ruby lifted her hood and stepped out into the rain.

She paused a mere moment, hesitating slightly before breaking into a full, semblance-aided sprint in an effort to lose any possible tails. Not trusting her team mates didn't sit well with her, but the thought of them catching her with Roman caused a sickening flip in her stomach. The depth of her feelings for him only made it harder to speak of, and despite the fact that Yang and the others would inevitably learn about this, she still wished to hide it. Ruby reached the streets of Vale in record time and pulled out her scroll to look up directions to Summershade Park. As the screen loaded her gaze darted around to verify that she had not been followed. After confirming that she was indeed alone, she followed the route her scroll presented to her until she found herself at the entrance to a very empty park.

Ruby's eyes scanned the area until she spotted an enormous willow tree whose vine-like branches had formed an unbroken blanket flowing all the way to the ground. This had to be the tree Roman had described, as it sat conspicuously at the very far edge of the park and was easily the largest bit of foliage in sight. Ruby hesitated once more, a knot tightening in her chest as, for a short moment, the thought came to mind that this was all in her head. That, like the many times before, it wasn't real. Ruby shuddered at the prospect but pressed forward, her footsteps slow and steady. She caught herself struggling to breathe, and her eyes trained solely on the willow tree before her until she stood in its shadow. She swallowed hard, her hand trembling a bit as she pushed away the canopy and stepped into the naturally occurring room behind it.

Despite previously drawn out expectations, she still found herself frozen from the sight before her, for there he was, seated on a picnic blanket at the base of the tree. His bowler hat and jacket sat next to his cane, discarded as he fiddled with his lighter in an attempt to light the cigar between his lips, swearing under his breath here and there at the disobedient thing. Ruby snorted at his predicament, and his gaze shifted immediately to her, his lighter flipping closed with a small click as he threw it aside and placed the unlit cigar back in his jacket pocket. He smirked, the uneasiness that had been apparent only moments before all but forgotten.

"Hello Red."

oooOOOooo

Roman had managed his excitement well over the course of the day, especially since Neo had been there to nudge him when he became a little too over-zealous. But now that Ruby was standing right in front of him, he was having a little more trouble with restraint. His eyes travelled across her momentarily, noting quickly that both her cape and her scythe were present.

"I can see that you brought your weed cutter along," he remarked as he gestured to the collapsible weapon.

"And you brought your cane."

"Touché."

Ruby walked towards him hesitantly; his eyes followed her as she found her place next to him and pulled her hood down. Roman leaned back onto the tree base and resisted the urge to dive towards her lips right away. Seeing her in person only made the fantasy of the dreams more apparent. He lifted a hand up to her cheek, his fingertips brushing her cheek lightly before her hand rose to his and pressed his palm flat against her skin. His breath caught in his throat for a moment—every nightly encounter preceding this could not begin to compare with how much better this simple action felt in reality. In a dream, the touch would've felt fleeting, the softness and warmth of her skin only registering on the surface of his palm as his brain loosely connected the gesture to a loving thought.

But here, the feeling lingered—instead of dulled sensation of smooth warmth, Roman felt the heat of her cheek burn against his palm until the temperature of her skin settled to match his. He leaned towards her, anxious to feel her lips against his as his hand traveled back to tangle into her hair. She slowly followed suit, and as their lips pressed firmly against each other, Roman could've sworn that Red had never tasted sweeter. He growled a little in his throat as he deepened the kiss, his hand pulling her closer while she tilted her head to the side in an attempt to reach his lips better. After a long moment they broke apart, breathless as they shared the small expanse of air between their parted mouths.

"And I thought kissing you felt good _before_," Roman let out a small hushed laugh, and Ruby gave him a small, dazed smile.

"You're telling me," she whispered back before leaning into his lips for more. They continued, the string of kisses growing hungrier with each passing moment as Ruby's small stifled moans rang in his ears and his hand tangled into his tresses. Roman felt the heat in his body rising as her hands balled into fists around the fabric of shirt sleeves, and he resisted the strong urge to pull her body flat against his own. If he did that in this moment, he might lose himself to his own desire. It was a few minutes before they parted again, both of them panting as all contact slowly ceased.

"That was far too much fun," Roman mumbled as he leaned back onto the willow tree's trunk. Ruby only managed a small nod in agreement. "Oh come on, Red, at least try to remind me that I'm supposed to hate you."

"Do you want to hate me?"

"God no," he chuckled, his eyes fluttering closed as he leaned his head upwards. "That's half the problem right there." Roman smiled as he felt Ruby move towards him and undo a portion of his shirt.

"Undressing me already, are we?"

"You wish."

He chuckled as he felt her hand run against a familiar patch of skin in an attempt to dry it before he heard the sound of a marker being uncapped and sensed the felt tip trace her initials in their usual spot. "Now I suppose there's the question of where I'm going to write on you…it'd be bad form if we took the time to keep this a secret and let your team see my initials on your shoulder." Roman's eyes traveled across Red's body thoughtfully as the girl in question flushed bright pink. "Do you trust me?" he inquired after a moment.

"Depends on what you want me to trust you with…" Ruby replied cautiously.

"If I asked to unbutton a small section of your blouse would you let me?" Her eyes narrowed at that and he raised a hand in his defense. "I've no intention of feeling you up, by the way."

After a pause, Ruby sighed and managed a meek nod. "I'll trust you. Just don't make me regret doing so."

Roman smirked and leaned towards her, his fingers slowly working at the buttons of her blazer, then her vest, and finally he undid the bottom half of her blouse to reveal the skin on her stomach. He absentmindedly tugged the high waist of her plaid skirt down slightly to make the small patch a little larger, soliciting a small squeak of discomfort from Red. He glanced up at her and did his best not to laugh at how blatantly anxious she looked—Christ she was modest. Roman instead put on a reassuring smile just as she closed her eyes, and he took the marker from her and quickly wrote his initials onto her upper abdomen. Afterwards he buttoned up the blouse, vest, and blazer before leaning in and placing a small kiss on her lips.

"You really are sinfully innocent," he remarked as she opened her eyes and glared at him.

"Shut up."

"Ah…my dearest Red, whatever will I do with you…" Roman chuckled and leaned his head on her shoulder. She pouted and pretended to ignore him. They sat in silence for a moment before he spoke again. "How much longer do you have?"

"…A few more minutes at best," she replied quietly.

"Do you want to do this again?"

"Yes."

"Hm." Roman planted a small peck on Ruby's neck before pulling away and retrieving a slip of paper from the pocket of his trousers. "Do you have your scroll on you?"

"Of course."

"Type in that number under that name on your contacts." Roman held the note out to Ruby, and she took it and squinted at it.

"…Prankmaster?"

"I figured that'd be a touch better than 'Crimelord'," he remarked with a smirk.

Ruby shrugged and pulled out her scroll. "We should come up with codes," she spoke up as she entered the number. "So we know when it's really us and not someone else."

"My thoughts precisely. Text me the code you want to use."

Ruby made a small nod without looking up from her scroll, and Roman felt his scroll vibrate in his pocket. He took it out and snorted at the message.

_{Beat your high sco-ore~}_

"You know, just for that, you are going into my phone as 'Little Sore Winner'."

"Hey!"

"Sending a message back now."

Roman smirked and typed in a short phrase to work as a code.

_{Guess what horrible thing I did today}_

Ruby glared at him for it, but he simply shrugged as he rose to his feet and picked up his jacket. "What? If you taunt me, I'll taunt back." Roman slipped the white coat over his shoulders and straightened out his dress shirt and tie. "Your place tonight?"

"Yeah," Red stood as he replaced his hat onto his head and buttoned his coat.

"Hm." Roman picked up his cane and lifted the picnic blanket into his arms, folding it quickly before resting it over one fore arm. He smirked and leaned in once more to kiss her.

"Until tonight then."

oooOOOooo

_Rosewick trash Peeves reporting in to tell you that dear god this chapter was hard to write. The college visit was awesome guys [it just left me kinda wiped] and I got to learn a lot about the school I'll be attending in spring semester. Moving on quick to review responses for those of you that I didn't hit up via pm…_

_I realized that in the last endnote I didn't address the question of how long this fic will be. Tbh…I've no fucking clue. Still working that out._

_Regarding the second comment on the punching of Flynt…Roman would know better, I think, especially if he cares about Ruby. Besides the fact that he's never struck me as needlessly violent [save for that one time with the giant robot], he cares about her by that point in the story and is smart enough to know how upset she'd be if he raised a hand at any of her friends._

_Regarding Yang 'acquiring' info…not quite sure whether or not you're implying that she'd find out because of Junior or walk in on them, but if it's the former then as I've previously stated, for this fanfiction, Junior is willing to lie about his relation to Roman if he thinks it'll put either of them in danger to be up front about it. In other words he'd be able to keep Roman and Ruby's relations a secret from Yang. I do have something in mind for how team RWBY finds out though, don't worry._

_Sorry if I sound grouchy, I just need some shut eye._

_Rosewick trash Peeves out until next chapter._


	11. The Twenty Eighth Dream

The Twenty Eighth Time

"So I'm going to ask this one more time, just in case you didn't hear me: are you completely out of your mind?"

"Not quite sure," Roman remarked as he took another sip of brandy and smirked at Junior. His best friend had been at this 'insane' spiel for so long now that he couldn't help but be amused. Junior had always played the role of keeping Roman in check when he decided to get reckless, so his opposition to paying Red a visit was far from surprising.

"You're not sure?" Junior rested his elbows on the table and rubbed his temples. "You're telling me that you willingly walked out to a public park in the middle of the day to go on a secret date with a girl six years younger than you and you're not sure if you've gone crazy?"

Roman paused a moment before shrugging in response. "I suppose."

"Who are you and what have you done with my best friend?"

Roman laughed as Junior poured himself his own cup of brandy. "Alright, you caught me, I'm losing my mind."

"Yeah well stop losing it," Junior growled, "You know I can't bail you out of your problems like I used to."

"Wasn't I the one bailing you out all the time?"

His best friend simply glared at him. "Watch your sass."

"Yes mom."

Junior sighed and leaned back a bit. "I know you've got no choice with the dreams and all, Roman, I get that. But you should know better on this."

"You're right."

"So why do I have the sinking feeling that you're going to see her again?"

"Because I am."

"Roman."

"Yes?"

"You're an idiot."

Roman smirked. "Probably."

Junior rubbed his neck a little and closed his eyes. "If you keep making me worry like this, I'm going to get an ulcer."

"If I had a dime for every time I've heard you say that then I could retire from the crime business fat and happy."

"Please…please tell me that you're taking this seriously on some level."

Roman sighed and leaned his head into his hands. He was more than a little aware of how well placed Junior's concern was. Roman's recent actions were akin to playing with fire in a dry rotted building—innately and obviously very stupid. "I am," he murmured as he looked back towards his best friend.

Junior eyed him carefully before taking a gulp of his brandy. "Normally I wouldn't ask, but you do have a way out marked for yourself, right?"

"I did. I'm not sure if it's still available."

"And now I'm certain that something's very wrong with you."

"You have no idea," Roman muttered as he took another sip of his brandy.

"Actually I'm starting to get a pretty good one. You're insane, for starters."

"Thank you for reminding me for the fiftieth time tonight, Junior."

oooOOOooo

"You know I don't think I ever asked you what excuse you used to leave Beacon," Roman remarked as he watched Ruby sit up in her bed.

"I said I was going on a walk…" she murmured lightly before letting out a small yawn.

"Huh. Did they buy it?"

"I didn't stick around to find out, but I don't think they did." Ruby slid off the bed and shuffled towards Roman. "I think they're waiting until tomorrow to confront me about it…" Red flopped down beside him gracelessly. "I see that the mark's still there."

He glanced down at his torso, where her initials were still written neatly. "It did. Yours?"

Ruby blushed a little but lifted her nightshirt away from her abdomen, revealing his initials scrawled just a little below her chest. She replaced the fabric quickly before leaning towards him and nuzzling her head into the crook of his neck. She sat there for a few moments before kissing his skin and speaking. "Doesn't feel as good here anymore."

"Mm. Yeah, it really doesn't compare to the real thing, does it?"

"Nope."

Roman smirked and pulled Ruby onto his lap, and she lifted away from his neck a little. He brought her in for a slow kiss, the kind that still managed to light his nerves on fire even when he couldn't feel her as well as he could in the waking hours. "So what do you want to do tonight?"

"Hm…" Ruby pressed her forehead against his and wrapped her arms around his neck. "Game of cards, maybe?"

"Not really in the mood."

"Why don't we read together?"

"You know how I feel about the fairy tales, Red."

"Then what should we do?"

"Hmm…take a bath together?" Roman smirked as Ruby's face turned the most alarming shade of scarlet. "That was a joke," he remarked as she began stuttering.

"N-not funny!"

"On the contrary, your reactions are nothing short of hilarious," he chuckled as Ruby tried to push away from him. "How about a board game? You still have a few, right?"

"Why in the world wouldn't I? What game do you want to play?"

"Four in a row?"

"We might have that."

"Or checkers."

"Okay."

Ruby stood up and walked towards one of the many storage containers at the foot of her bed; Roman's mouth set into a hard line as he watched her rummage through them. He studied her carefully, wondering when exactly he'd started finding everything about her adorable—maybe even beautiful. The edges of his lips fell into a frown as he realized that the thought of Red getting hurt, whether by him or any of his associates, caused his heart to clench in pain. When had that started? He hadn't even noticed, and that wasn't like him. Not more than three weeks ago the thought of seeing her corpse would've made him jump for joy, but now…he didn't even want to think about it. It was beyond horrific to imagine her like that. He needed to test his resolve again.

"What's wrong?"

Roman looked up at Ruby's concerned expression, having not even realized that he was lost in thought. "Fine," he breathed, "just thinking."

"Work again?"

He winced at that. "Somewhat."

"I won't ask then. I found four in a row and checkers. Which do you want to play more?"

Roman tapped the four in a row box lazily and Red shrugged and began setting up the game.

"Which color do you want?" she asked as she sorted out the chips.

"Well, red for Red, so…" Roman smirked and laid down on his side. "I suppose I'll settle for black."

"Like your heart?"

"You wound me."

Ruby giggled a bit and pushed the black chips towards Roman. "Prepare to be annihilated."

"You assume that I'm going to lay down and let you take the victory."

"I've crushed you before."

"That was because of your semblance. This game isn't about speed though, it's about strategy."

"You think I can't handle strategy?"

"I think you're up against a crime lord whose main strength is strategic planning."

"Is it really? You've never seemed very prepared whenever I caught you."

"That, my dearest Red, is because you were impossible to plan for."

Ruby smirked and placed her first chip in the stand. "Says the supposed master planner."

"How often would you expect a fifteen year old to thwart your robberies and find your base of operations?" Roman mumbled lazily as he placed one of his chips.

"Not very often," she shrugged, "Though that last part was kind of an accident."

Roman perked an eyebrow at that. "You found it by accident?"

"I kinda…fell through a hole in the ground?"

Roman sighed and placed a hand over his eyes. "For the sake of my dignity, can you please refrain from telling anyone else that you did that unintentionally?"

"Our little secret?"

"Let's add it to the pile."

Ruby snickered and placed another chip, followed closely by Roman placing his last chip and smirking as he pointed out his victory to her. "Best two out of three," she demanded immediately.

"Now Red, could it be that you're just as much of a sore loser as you are a sore winner?"

"Please?"

"Hmm…no."

"Romaaaaaan!"

He laughed as she tackled him, the game toppling over in a mess as Ruby forced him onto his back. "You are laughably petty about these games."

"Shut up!"

"Make me," Roman grinned impishly as he wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her flat on top of him; her nightshirt rode up a bit as she squirmed. She blushed and turned her eyes away from him, making him smirk. "Aw, look at that, little Red's all flustered. How adorable."

"S-Shut up."

"As I said before Red," Roman brought an hand up to her cheek and coaxed her face back to look at his. "Make me."

Ruby leaned in closer to his face and brushed her lips up against his. "But I don't wanna give you kisses, you're being mean."

"You just want to play until you've beaten me," he chuckled before pressing a small, soft kiss onto her lips.

"I do not!"

"Do too."

"Romaaaaan!" Ruby pouted and Roman couldn't help but laugh.

"Honestly, Ruby, I don't feel like playing another round. Especially when you're being this cute, it's far too distracting."

Red grumbled a bit before flopping her head down onto his shoulder. "Meanie," she mumbled.

"But of course," Roman breathed, still smirking lightly. They lay there a moment in silence; Ruby emphasized her moping by drawing small circles on his chest as he brought a hand up to pet her hair. "So tomorrow…you're busy?"

"Yea."

"Same. How about Friday?"

"Kinda free in the evening? I'd have to find a more viable excuse than going on a walk to feed my team…"

"How about Sunday?"

"Sunday's good."

"Hm. Shall we text a little tomorrow to sort out the details?"

"Sure."

Roman smiled and kissed her on the forehead.

_"Sounds like a plan."_

oooOOOooo

Ruby woke up to a room of agitated teammates the next morning and immediately wished she could go back to sleep. She was right to assume that they hadn't bought her excuse. They hadn't believed a single syllable. And now she had almost literally been pulled from her bed by Weiss, Yang, and Blake.

"Where did you go last night?" Weiss demanded pointedly, her eyes narrowed in a glare and her arms crossed over her chest.

"Out for a walk," Ruby replied sheepishly.

"In the middle of the rain?" Blake spoke next, her voice soft yet heavy with skepticism.

"I watched you speed off campus, Ruby," Yang frowned, "Where'd you have to be in such a hurry?"

"I just wanted to take a walk off campus, kay?"

"Do you really expect us to believe that? You're obviously hiding something, Ruby," Weiss stepped a little closer and put her hands on her hips. "And we all want to know what."

"Weiss…"

"Don't sit there and lie to us Ruby! Where did you go?!"

"I went on a walk!" Ruby insisted. Weiss looked as if she was about to blow a fuse before Blake held up a hand to hold her back.

"Ruby, we all know that isn't true," she spoke evenly, "Why can't you tell us the truth?"

Ruby paused and frowned, her eyes scanning her team briefly before they fell to the floor. She took a moment to consider telling them before brushing off the idea. If she told them now, they'd try to prevent her from seeing Roman again, and she didn't want that to happen yet. She paused a moment to wonder when exactly she'd become so self-serving. "It's complicated…" she muttered, "But I promise it's nothing bad, it's just…hard to explain…I can't tell you guys yet, okay?"

She looked up to find the girls around her fixed with matching somber expressions, and Ruby wished for a moment that she didn't have to hide it from them.

"We should get ready for class," Yang finally muttered as she made way for her closet, follow shortly by Weiss and Blake. Ruby felt like screaming as they walked away, for at this point, there was no right way to solve this. No matter what, the end result would be messy; it didn't matter if she kept it a secret or told them, gave Roman up or remained stubbornly attached. Whatever she chose would hurt, badly. Ruby shook off the thought long enough to get ready for classes, the tension between her and her team still blatantly apparent even as they left their dorms. Ruby mentally listed the people she might be able to talk to without receiving a hefty amount of backlash. At the moment, only three came to mind, and she would need their advice, desperately.

Because she didn't know what to do anymore.

oooOOOooo

_Rosewick trash Peeves reporting in! Thanks again for all of your lovely reviews [and a couple of lovely messages that I received on my tumblr] I appreciate you all immensely. I know this chapter's a little later than the norm, but I kinda had, y'know, Thanksgiving and all. Nothing's really coming to mind that I wanted to tell you guys, so…thank you all for your generous reviews, I will try and get the next chapter out faster…considering the depiction of some angst revolving around Roman…thoughts everyone?_

_Ah. Well. Rosewick trash Peeves out until next chapter._


	12. The 30th Day, 31st Dream and 2nd Meeting

The Thirtieth Day (followed by the Thirty First Time and the Second Meeting)

Ruby felt immensely ridiculous right now. Not only was she nervous as hell, but she had also resorted to fiddling with the hem of her plaid skirt as a coping mechanism, and it was making her feel far too girly. Pyrrha was busy helping Jaune with homework, and she was trying very, very hard to wait her turn. Even if there was no guarantee that either of them could help her out on this, she needed to talk to someone, and sadly that couldn't be her team.

"So…" Jaune managed a light chuckle in an effort to break the ice. "Still worried about exams Ruby? Pyrrha's a really good study partner, I'm sure she wouldn't mind helping if you need it."

"Um, actually, I'm fine…I'm not too worried…" Ruby managed a barely coherent mumble as she kept her eyes planted on her skirt.

"Weren't you worried a few days ago?" Jaune asked cluelessly.

"What's wrong, Ruby?" Pyrrha finally spoke up, her voice laced with concern. "You sound troubled."

Ruby glanced up at Pyrrha hesitantly before hanging her head once more. "Uh…um, I-I was just wondering if I could have your advice on something…"

"Of course," Pyrrha replied.

Ruby paused as she tried to find a proper way to ask her question. "Um…theoretically speaking, what would you do if you had something to tell someone, but you knew it was going to upset them?"

"What kinda thing?" Jaune inquired.

"Um, if you had to tell someone something you've done…but you're sure they'd be upset if you told them, and they're upset with you because you won't tell them, what would you do?"

"Ruby, why are you bringing this up?" Pyrrha spoke up softly.

"I can't—it's really complicated, and I'm not really sure how to explain it right now, but I just—please, I just need a few pointers." Ruby's eyes met Pyrrha's, and they held eye contact for a bit until Pyrrha let out a sigh.

"I can't say that I've ever really been in a situation like that before…but if it were me, I would probably tell them. They'll only get more upset if I continue to hide it."

"What if…what if it sounded a little insane?"

Pyrrha's brow knit together in confusion at that. "What do you mean?"

"I mean what you need to explain to them…sounds crazy…but it's still true."

"How crazy could it be?" Jaune interjected. "I mean, we're pretty used to crazy by now, aren't we?"

"It sounds more insane than Nora, Jaune. Much more insane."

"You broke the scale?"

"I decimated the scale."

"Oooooh."

"Well…that would make it rather hard to believe," Pyrrha murmured.

"Yeah…"

"I would still try though," she continued, "as ludicrous as whatever you have to say may sound, it'll still be better than saying nothing at all."

Ruby nodded slowly in recognition. "Okay. Thanks Pyrrha," Ruby stood to leave the library, and as she turned away from the table Pyrrha spoke up once more.

"Ruby, wait!"

She turned back to the redhead, whose wore a small concerned frown.

"Are you really okay?"

Ruby paused a moment before managing a tiny smile. "Yeah, I'm fine."

_ For now._

oooOOOooo

"So do you have a decent excuse this time?"

Ruby gave a sidelong glance towards Roman, who had, only moments before, been delivering tiny affectionate pecks to her neck. She figured that his reasoning for the action was probably along the lines of trying to get her attention, as she had swiped his scroll once more and was paying much more attention to the game than she was to the person she was sitting on. "For tomorrow?" she inquired to Roman as his lips continued to hover over her neck.

"What else?"

"It was a simple question, that's all," Ruby murmured as she brought a hand up to ruffle the hair on his crown. "Yeah, I'm using Olive as my excuse."

"Is Olive aware of this?"

"Um, yeah, about that. She's coming with to meet you."

Roman lifted his head from Ruby's shoulder and looked at her quizzically. "I thought you were keeping this a secret."

"Olive is the only friend I have right now that knows I'm over Flynt. She's also been looking for an excuse to get away from Signal for another weekend so I told her I'd help her out and satisfy her curiosity if she could keep her mouth shut."

"Can she keep her mouth shut?"

"Generally, no. But it takes Olive at least two hours to even explain the tiniest secret and apparently at the current moment I'm the only one willing to listen to her for that long."

"What about Amber and Flynt?"

"Why do you think she's so desperate to get away from Signal?"

"Ah…relationship troubles?"

"'Amber moved to drama town' quote Olive. Apparently she accidentally let it slip that I was upset about being the last to know about Amber's crush on Flynt and then Flynt found out a little later that I used to like him so they've been having a few rough weeks. And Amber's been blaming Olive for it."

"Hm. How lovely of her."

"It's Amber," Ruby stated bitterly, "She can be kinda hard to handle when her feathers are ruffled."

"So Olive is coming to visit, hm?" Roman let out a low whine. "And here I thought I could have you to myself."

"She's only coming along to our meeting spot, she won't be breathing over my shoulder all night." Ruby turned to Roman and pecked him on the lips. "Don't worry about it."

He chuckled at that. "Well I suppose it justifies Neo's insistence on meeting you."

"She insisted?"

"She doesn't trust you or me when I'm near you."

"Oh." Ruby mulled over the thought in her brain for a second. "Maybe she can keep Olive company then."

"Perhaps. Now…" Roman pulled his scroll away from Ruby and tossed it away lightly before wrapping his arms tighter around her as he nuzzled his face into her neck. He kissed her neck again, lingering a moment before bringing his lips up to her ear. "Can I have your full attention Red?"

"I was busy."

"No you weren't."

"I was in the middle of a lev—"

"Shh, now Red, we both know that you weren't busy, don't we?"

"You just don't want me to beat your high score again, don't you?" Roman's eyes narrowed a little at the comment and Ruby couldn't help but to snicker.

"You little—" Roman began tickling her sides and she let out a yelp as they both fell backwards.

"H-Hey! Stop it!" Ruby kicked her legs in retaliation and Roman laughed. "Fine, I take it back!"

"Much better," he breathed as he halted his attacks and leaned over her.

"You can be such a baby sometimes, you know that?"

Roman smirked brought a hand up to her cheek, "Didn't I say I didn't want to hear that from you?"

"Maybe"

He chuckled and leaned in for a slow kiss. "Then stop saying it."

"Make me."

_"Maybe I will."_

oooOOOooo

By the time Ruby and Olive arrived at the Club the next evening, Ruby could've sworn that her friend was vibrating with excitement. She certainly hadn't shut up in the time it'd taken them to get here.

"I still can't believe I'm gonna be the first to meet your secret boyfriend," Olive bounced around Ruby. "I'm so excited!"

"I can see that," Ruby chuckled as she went for the club's entrance.

"Isn't this that one really shady club that Yang told you about? The twenty years and older one that she broke into before coming to Beacon?"

"That's the one."

"Aren't we not allowed in here?"

"Yeah, technically we're not supposed to, but they don't really monitor the doors."

"So we're sneaking in? Cool. I feel like a rebel."

Ruby snorted as they walked through the entrance and into the dance hall, tugging Olive along by the sleeve as she located the bar. "Excuse me," Ruby addressed the bearded man behind the counter, and he looked up from his drink. "Are you Junior?"

"I'm guessing you're Ruby?"

"Yup, she's Ruby!" Olive interjected. "And I'm Olive. Nice to meet you Junior!"

Junior eyed the girl questioningly as she outstretched a hand to him and hesitated a moment before shaking it. "Okay…nice to meet you…" Junior pulled his hand away after a moment and pulled two sodas out from behind the counter, tossing one to each girl before leaning his elbows on the counter. "Your boyfriend insisted I leave those for you," he explained. "Speaking of, he happens to be in the second floor booth to your left. And I know you probably won't with Neo and your friend up there too, but please, please don't decide to suck face with him in the middle of my club, wait til you're alone or something."

Ruby could feel her cheeks begin to burn as she nodded meekly and quickly strode to her left with Olive right next to her.

"So you have kissed him!"

"Olive!"

"Why didn't you tell me?!"

"You didn't give me the chance to before you asked another question!"

"Oh. Oopsie. So he's in the booth up there?"

Ruby's eye's traveled to the elevated booth in front of them and noticed Roman sitting at the table with Neo sitting a little away from him. Ruby smiled a bit, her blush still hot against her cheeks as she nodded. "Yeah, that's him."

"Isn't that the guy that's all over the news?"

"…Yeah."

"The one that broke out of jail?"

"That's the one…"

"Oh. Who's the girl sitting next to him?"

"That's Neo. She's his bodyguard…I think," Ruby paused and turned to look at her friend. "Why do you ask?"

Olive continued to stare at the booth as she spoke again. "She's really cute." Olive turned to face Ruby. "Is she single?"

Ruby gaped at her friend. "Olive!"

"Is she?"

"How am I supposed to know?!"

"Huh." Olive turned back towards the booth and tilted her head.

"Oh no," Ruby started. "No, Olive, don't you dare flirt with her!"

"Why not? All you told me to do was keep your boyfriend a secret, you never said I had to behave myself. Besides, never hurts to ask." Olive smirked and skipped towards the booth, and Ruby flailed madly for a moment before running after her.

"Hello friends!" Olive announced as the two entered the booth and she slid into the seat next to Neo. "You are gorgeous," Olive spoke to the small woman as she sat down. "Are you dating anyone at the moment?"

"Olive…" Ruby whined as she sat down next to Roman, who was chuckling a bit from her friend's animated entrance.

"Hello Red," Roman murmured as his laughter subsided.

"Hi…" Ruby watched Olive carefully as she smiled at Neo; she felt more than a little concerned about the woman's possible reactions. Neo blinked at the girl's compliment before pulling out a note pad and scrawling a note that she passed to Roman. He chuckled and passed the note to Ruby. She quickly scanned its content.

_Why is the Ruby lookalike flirting with me?_

Ruby looked up at Neo's questioning gaze. "Because she thinks you're cute."

Neo wrote up another note and showed it to Ruby. _Well I am, but why is she flirting with me?_

"I don't really know," Ruby shrugged, "She likes flirting with cute girls."

"I also like dating them," Olive added. "Hey, why aren't you speaking?"

Neo sent a glare in Olive's direction and was about to write another note before Roman spoke up. "Neo, use your scroll before Junior yells at us again."

The woman made a face but pulled out her scroll and typed up a note to show Olive. The girl paused to read it before grinning and looking up at Roman.

"I like her, can I have her?"

"She's not mine to give," Roman replied with a chuckle as Olive turned back to Neo.

"I would like it very much if you would go on a date with me," she said firmly, winning another note from Neo.

Roman chuckled and turned to Ruby. "Well this is rather unexpected," he murmured.

"Yup," she replied.

"Maybe we should leave them alone for a bit?"

"Please. I'm slowly dying of embarrassment over here."

Roman chuckled and turned away for a second to finish off his drink; as he did he placed the empty glass back on the table. He glanced back towards Ruby, his smirk wide and playful.

"Well then, Red, let's get going."

oooOOOooo

_Rosewick trash Peeves reporting in and all I have to say for myself regarding that last part is yes. Yes I did. By the way, if any of you were wondering, Neo's first note to Olive read as 'I'm not speaking because I'm a mute, you little dipshit.' Yeh. Also to clarify, the only reason Ruby doesn't want Olive to flirt is because she finds Olive [or any of her friends really] really mortifying when she openly flirts. So regarding reviews…someone called me a sir again. I honestly don't mind and I find it amusing but that said, I am still a lady._

_Regarding the comment considering the three people Ruby is comfy getting advice from…I was initially thinking of Ozpin, Penny and Olive but in light of your review I switched out Penny for Pyrrha because after I thought about it a little it did make a lot more sense._

_Regarding the possibility of Roman angst…..:) –whispers- next chapter…_

_Regarding the same reviewer that posted their own rosewick fic: FUCKING THANK YOU I LOOK FORWARD TO READING IT. To all of my other readers, if you haven't checked out their story yet [A Chance Encounter by AvocetsinFlight] I highly suggest it, it's very promising. _

_To those of you who haven't started stalking my blog and didn't get the news…I'm gonna write a Christmas special [or two] for this story, and it'll come out around mid-December. Also in regards Jaune's asking Ruby if she 'broke the scale', I've a personal headcanon that in team RWBY and JNPR's time together, they reverted from rating crazy on a scale of one to ten to rating it on a scale of Ren to Nora. Thank you again for all your wonderful reviews, favorites and follows, I appreciate every single one of you._

_If you want to start stalking my blog as others have, you can find at alice-with-a-bowtie dot tumblr dot com. I welcome each and every one of you, if you'd like. So._

_Rosewick trash Peeves out until next chapter._


	13. The Second Meeting, part one

The Second Meeting Continued into the Weekend

Roman was definitely pleased to see Red again. Most of him was insanely giddy upon her arrival. And besides the portion of him distracted by her friend's awkward and blunt advances on Neo, his attention had completely fixated on Ruby. The only problem happened to be his rationality, as instead of being shot, like it should have been, it was instead ever present and loudly reminding him that this meeting, along with everything he'd done in the past month, made him a complete moron. This internal battle, however, had little effect on the game of poker that he was currently winning.

"Oh come on, Red, quit pouting," he chuckled, "I'll split my winnings with you after you've run out."

"I wanted to play Spit," she mumbled childishly.

"And I wanted to sit at the table, not _under _it," Roman glanced up at the dining table briefly before looking back to Ruby and smiling. "Consider this our compromise."

"All in," Ruby mumbled and tossed the rest of her candy into the center.

"Hm, think I'll call," Roman grabbed a handful of candies from his rather large pile and placed them down with hers.

Ruby frowned and tossed her cards into the middle. "Take your winnings okay?"

"You do know that you have four of a kind, right?"

"Yeah, but they're just Jacks. With my luck you definitely got a better hand."

Roman chuckled and revealed his cards. "How right you are. Royal flush is higher than four of a kind. I win."

Ruby let out a low groan and flopped down onto her back as he collected his winnings. Roman laughed, popping a small candy in his mouth before grabbing another and laying down next to her. "You know Red, you did do well for your first game of poker. You only have one problem."

"Hn?"

"Your poker face? It's nonexistent. You are legitimately the worst liar I have ever met in my entire life."

Ruby glared at Roman for the comment, but he simply smirked as he unwrapped the second candy and held it out to her. She frowned a little before snatching it from his hands and popping it into her mouth. "Meanie," she muttered.

"Well I can't let you win all the time Red, that would be unfair," he shifted a little closer to her straightened out her bangs a little. "So how long do you have tonight?"

Ruby finished off her candy and turned on her side to face Roman. "Um…all night? I kinda told Yang that me and Olive might have a sleepover."

Roman's eyebrows knit together in confusion. "Where?"

"Summershade Park," she replied simply. "Olive loves camping."

"Did I neglect to notice the supplies for this?"

"My backpack's sitting right on the other side of the tablecloth, and Olive still has hers."

"So I just didn't notice."

Ruby shrugged. "I suppose."

"Hm." Roman pulled Ruby in for a small kiss before breaking away slightly and caressing her cheek. "So you were planning on sleeping in a park all night? You do know that that isn't particularly safe, right?"

Ruby snorted. "I'm training to be a Huntress, Roman, I can handle myself."

"I still don't like it."

"We'll be fine."

"Do you have your gardening tool with you?"

"No, but—"

"And now I like this idea even less," a frown marred Roman's features as he spoke again, "Red, you're damn near hopeless without that thing."

"Why should I expect trouble?"

"Because you're a relatively attractive girl trying to sleep outside in the middle of inner city Vale? Come on Red, Do you actually think that the park is safe after dark?"

"You know I never took you for a worrier," Ruby remarked.

"And I never took you for an idiot," Roman retorted, "Actually, that's a lie, before the whole shared dreams fiasco, I was under the impression that you were a total moron. I was starting to change my mind, don't go and change it back."

Ruby's eyes narrowed at that, her voice came as a low growl through clenched teeth. "I can take care of myself, Roman."

"I'm not saying you can't, Red, I'm saying that humans are capable of quite a few grotesque things that you are not properly prepared for. I'm a criminal, I know how the rookies think. I also know that there are plenty of people that, unlike myself, are not respectful of woman's right to say no. You're too vulnerable without your scythe and you know it."

Ruby's lips pursed and she averted her eyes from his. "You can't guarantee that something will happen…"

"And you can't guarantee that nothing will happen." Roman sighed, his arm wrapping over her waist protectively. He really didn't like this idea of hers; she was far too trusting at the wrong moments and could get into so much trouble. And based on what he'd seen of Olive, he doubted she was much better. By this point, Roman's rationality had shut off once more. Instead, his bad habit of being far too protective was rearing its ugly head. He cared about Ruby too much to knowingly leave her in harm's way at this point, and while he would likely kick himself in the morning for this, he didn't give it a second thought. "Look, normally I wouldn't make this request but in light of the circumstances, I'd honestly prefer it if you stayed with me tonight."

Red's eyes shot back to him quizzically. "You're saying I should stay at one of your apartments tonight?"

"Olive too, of course," he breathed, "Better than leaving you to your own devices with a tent."

"Isn't taking your girlfriend home with you after the second date moving a little too fast?"

"Red, you've been in all ten of my apartments' master bedrooms already—granted, you were dreaming—but that doesn't change the fact that you'd be in familiar territory."

"I'm not sure I should trust you on this, honestly."

"It'd be better than trusting yourself to whatever strangers are in Summershade Park," Roman stated flatly, "Of course you could always go back to Beacon, right?"

Ruby shook her head. "Olive wouldn't have a place to sleep."

"If she has any success with Neo, she might," he noted with a smirk, causing Red to snicker a little.

"That's a very unlikely 'maybe'," she murmured before sighing. "Fine. I know it's a bad idea but if you insist…I guess we'll stay with you…how are we gonna get there?"

"Well…" Roman and pushed Ruby gently onto her back, "you're going to have to borrow one of Junior's overcoats, and maybe a hat, for starters."

"Why…?"

"Because you're marked in the underground."

"Meaning…?"

"You're wanted in the criminal world, kind of like how the government wants me, only they don't want you dead."

Ruby grimaced at that. "Fantastic. What about Olive?"

"She shouldn't be recognizable, so she'll be fine."

"Okay. When should we leave?"

"Whenever you're ready, Red," Roman murmured as he leaned down and pecked her on the lips. As he broke away, she smiled mischievously and pulled him back in for a deeper kiss, her fingers tangling into his hair in an attempt to pull him closer.

"Can we stay a little longer?" she whispered after they parted.

"I wouldn't mind," he breathed as he leaned back in to catch her mouth in a slow tantalizing dance. Dear lord, he'd missed this. Even if the four days since their last waking meeting had been brief, the dreams in between had left him thirsty, his desire to hold Ruby left unquenched by the vagueness of her nightly apparition. He couldn't complain too much, spending time with her was still enjoyable without the amplified sense of feeling granted by reality, but when he was here…his body stung with a sort of static, wherever their skin pressed together he felt himself lit ablaze.

One month, he reminded himself. This had only lasted one month. He and Red were finding themselves in the honeymoon stage of a relationship doomed to failure. Roman found himself trying not to pay attention to that. Maybe a month ago he would've scolded himself for this behavior, but now he was reveling in it. The taste of Ruby's lips against his was something to be appreciated even if it was brief. Being here with her was a gift even if it was destined to fall apart. Even if he wasn't sure if he could live with the consequences, Roman had forgotten the costs far too long ago to remember now.

As the last kiss broke, he pressed his hands against her cheeks and his eyes wandered across her flushed face. Her silver eyes stared back at him, half lidded and dazed from the previous excitement, and he laughed lightly as he straightened out her bangs. Ruby's fingers followed suit, running through his bangs until one hand caught the fringe covering his right eye. Roman stiffened as her hand pressed through to trace the features he hid from everyone; he felt something in his chest tighten as her palm rested itself against the edge of his cheek and she leaned up to kiss the skin beneath his right eye. He swallowed hard—sometimes reality set in at the worst moments.

"Ruby," he whispered before clearing his throat in an attempt to make his voice less hoarse. She pulled away slowly, her confusion made apparent in her expression. Roman lifted himself away from her and straightened out his bangs. "We should probably get going."

"Oh…okay," Ruby sat up and began cleaning up their game while he silently kicked himself for killing the mood. At the same time though, he somewhat glad that he had stopped drowning in the deeper affection he suddenly found himself feeling for Red. It was almost as if…no. Roman didn't feel for her like that. No matter how much he enjoyed her company, no matter how beautiful she'd become in his eyes, he didn't feel that strongly for her.

He was not falling in love.

oooOOOooo

Ruby gazed down at the busy streets of Vale from the windowsill of Roman's bedroom as she absentmindedly brushed her fingers against her right shoulder. She noted that he hadn't been exaggerating when he said the city never slept. The traffic of the streets had not slowed once since the moment they'd arrived. Ruby smiled slightly, wondering to herself how Roman slept with all this noise echoing in from below. The smile faded just as fast as it had occurred, her forehead pressed onto the glass as her thoughts set on Roman. She was sure she'd upset him…but she didn't know why. He'd gone uncharacteristically quiet since they'd left the Club, and even with Olive's enthusiastic reenactment of her conversation with Neo to distract her, Ruby couldn't help but notice it.

What had it been? She'd rerun the events of the evening over and over, looking for it in a vain attempt to figure out what she'd done. Sadly it wasn't working, she simply kept dancing around the problem without finding the point. It was honestly kind of irritating.

"Isn't that my spot?"

Ruby turned her gaze towards the door to find Roman leaning on the archway, his expression somewhat nondescript as he watched her from afar. "I'm only borrowing it," she spoke softly.

"Well you aren't allowed to borrow it," Roman replied as he lifted off the doorframe, his voice even and void of any underlying anger. "That's my spot."

"What, need to pout?" Ruby murmured, a tiny smile playing at her lips. "I'm sure there's room for two."

Roman frowned at her bitter statement and closed the remaining distance between them, the silence between them thick enough to cut with a knife. He leaned down to deliver a small kiss to her lips, barely lingering a few seconds before pulling out slightly to look at her. "Please Red, I need a moment to think. And as selfish as it may sound to you, I'd prefer to be alone."

Ruby swallowed hard and gave him a small nod before quietly shuffling over to his bed and sitting down. The atmosphere between them was much too heavy, and she forced herself to breathe as her hands balled into fists around her pajama pants. Don't cry, she reminded herself, her eyes closing and her relaxed breathing feigned to near perfection. This didn't hurt. She had nothing to be upset about. Roman wasn't angry, he just needed to think. _About what?_ Ruby bit back her tears momentarily as the urge to break struck hard at the walls of her composure. Do _not_ cry, she reminded herself. There was nothing to cry about. This is not the time, nor the place.

Ruby resisted the urge to flop down on the bed and throw the covers over her body, instead opting to pull back the blankets slowly and replace them over herself just as calmly. Though she knew Roman wasn't paying attention to her, she hoped to god he wouldn't notice her at this moment. She hoped he wouldn't walk over, that he wouldn't notice the pained expression on her face. But at the same time, she wished he would; the comfort would've been nice. No, that was selfish, he had other things to worry about, if she had upset him then she just needed to give him time to tell her why. Ruby heard Roman let out a light chuckle and she bit her lip to keep in the short sob that threatened to leave her lips. Do not cry. This was not the time or place. She had to wait her turn.

"And now you took my bed, huh, Red? Well I suppose since Olive took the guest room, I'll be on the couch tonight."

Ruby heard him begin to approach the bed and she forced her expression to go passive, her pain hidden as she felt his fingers graze her upper arm. Do not tremble, she reminded herself. Hide it. He doesn't need to see you cry about this.

"Goodnight Ruby."

Ruby couldn't reply. Any answer would've come out as a cracked whisper and would easily give her away. He didn't seem to notice her silence and shuffled to the entrance, quickly flicking off the lights and closing the door behind him. Ruby waited to hear his footsteps fade before letting her sadness seep back onto her face, a short shallow sob escaped her lips as a whisper. She let her tears fall, covering her eyes as her breath left her mouth in small shuddering gasps. She stopped herself from allowing any noise to permeate her sobs, any moan or whine would probably catch someone's attention and her tears weren't their problem. She wasn't used to feeling like this. This surge of emotional torment had unraveled her more than anything ever had before, all things considered, even fighting Grimm had never pushed her over this edge. So what was it?

Why was she so terrified?

oooOOOooo

_Rosewick trash Peeves reporting in and once again I apologize for the uncharacteristically long wait, this chapter was a pain to write and I was perpetually busy. Also as a result of *possible* vitamin D deficiencies, my amount of fatigue spiked and I spent a lot more time sleeping than I did writing. 'Twas not my intention but understand that I caught myself nodding at the computer screen on one too many occasions. Also tumblr's gone back to distracting me so…I keep getting sidetracked. Now regarding reviews to the most recent reviews…_

_To the person who hoped for a happy ending…honestly, I haven't decided on that front. Honestly there are so many possible endgames on this story right now that choosing one would be difficult (at the very least, know that I'm pretty sure a happy ending is still among the plausible outcomes). Depending on where this goes [for the sake of what I think is a majority geared towards a happy ending I'll probs go with that] then I may or may not make a compilation of alternate endings and post them independently of this story, but if that happens it'll happen later._

_Regarding the person who asked about the Christmas special…that will be posted here after the next chapter (There may be two Christmas chapters and a New Years special as well, depends on how much time I have.)_

_To the person that stayed up till four in the morning reading this story: that is unhealthy to do but I'm not scolding you because I've done it before so scolding you would make me a hypocrite._

_To the people who expressed love for Olive: thank you, I really appreciate it a lot._

_And regarding one particular review about Olive…okay I already sent this reviewer a message to this is more of a message towards everyone else: where I take the *possible* relationship between Olive and Neo is my choice, and if OC pairings are still going to bother you as a side relationship, then allow me to quote Tyler Oakley and reply with "kindly fuck off". I'm sorry if that seems rude but even if you don't like OCs it is unacceptable behavior to request that I avoid that pairing based on your bias. I will do what I want, thank you. And that's the last time I will mention this review ever as I've already ranted on tumblr as well. Ahem. Sorry_

_I'll try to get the next chapter up faster and then I'll work on the Christmas specials, which will be light and fluffy as opposed to super angsty like above. Sorry 'bout that. Also any other updates on this story [like how far I am with the latest chapter, rambles on possible ideas for it, headcanons on the characters, random shendigs] can all be found on my tumblr, alice—with-a-bowtie dot tumblr dot com._

_Rosewick trash Peeves out until next chapter._


	14. The First Night and Day

The Events of the Weekend (the First Night and Day)

After a half hour of tossing and turning, Roman was finally ready to admit it. He could not seem to get to sleep. Now he had dealt with insomnia before in his life, but since the dreams with Red started, it had not occurred once. Whenever he went to sleep at night, he was comatose in minutes, drifting off into a peaceful sleep where he was soon joined by Red on the dream plane. But tonight, for whatever reason, was different. Tonight the dreams refused to come, and without them Roman was wide awake, even though he wanted to be very unconscious.

He sighed, one hand reaching up to cover his eyes. The tension between him and Ruby had lasted a little too long. There hadn't been an argument to speak of…the problem was simply Roman's sudden idiotic refusal to get closer to her. She hadn't asked what was wrong—he wasn't sure that that was a good thing. Something told him that it most certainly wasn't. Roman groaned and sat up, leaning his head into his hands as he tried to talk himself out of his next course of action. He shouldn't be thinking about her this much. In four days' time this relationship was going to see its gruesome demise. But right now…he wanted to talk to Ruby. He needed a break from this dense atmosphere.

Roman lifted up from the couch and ambled slowly through the rooms of his abode until he reached the master bedroom. The less time he took to think about this decision, the better. He drew in a deep breath as he reached the door and pushed it open. "Hey, Red are you still—"

Roman went rigid in the doorway as his eyes fixated on Ruby, who was sobbing quietly to herself in the safety and solitude of his bed. Roman stared at her in disbelief, his expression setting into one of near horror—he was almost completely certain that he was to blame for these tears. Roman's brain began running a thousand miles a minute as he tore through it looking for a way to fix this. He royally failed at consoling Ruby the last time she was this distraught and now that it was his fault, he was nearly guaranteed to fail more. Momentarily the idea that he should just leave and let her cry surfaced, but he discarded the thought as quickly as it had occurred. No matter how much he needed to let her go, he didn't want to see her like this right now.

Even though this affair threatened to ruin both of them, he couldn't find it in himself to walk away from her at this moment. Roman swallowed hard and slowly entered the room; a small creak from one of the floorboards alerted Red to his presence, and she sat up slightly as she tried to back away from him. He paused at the action, halting for a few long seconds before inching towards the bed once more. Ruby hung her head as he lowered himself to the mattress, and he frowned as he pressed hand against her cheek. Roman nearly swore under his breath as he noticed how just how many tears had stained her skin in his absence. His frown deepened and he gently pulled Ruby's face up, his eyes looking intently towards hers as they darted about frantically.

Her gaze met his for a split second before it fell once more, her face marred by a deep frown. "S-Sorry…"

"Hell, Red," Roman brought his free hand to Ruby's other cheek and held her head up, feeling her jolt a little at the sound of his voice. "Listen to me," he murmured as she hiccupped lightly, "Don't apologize, please. You did nothing wrong."

"But—" Ruby faltered as he pressed a finger against her lips, her breathing stuttered slightly. "I upset you…"

"Ruby, you did not upset me, okay? I upset me, I am to blame for my bad mood. You have nothing to apologize for." Roman caught a few tears as they fell from her eyes and brushed them away. "Look, it's not your fault, please don't blame yourself for it. Oh, and if I ever manage to make you feel like this again, just…slap me or something. Odds are that I probably deserve it."

Ruby hiccupped again, her eyes wandering Roman's features before she brought up a limp hand and hesitantly patted him on the cheek in some feigned attempt to hit him. His mouth broke into a small grin as he let out a chuckle. "That's better."

Ruby laughed a little, her breath still escaping her lips in labored gulps as she managed to smile through her tears. She nodded weakly before her eyes fell again, her hand falling from his cheek and trailing a little down his chest as her somber expression returned. He frowned in turn and leaned towards her, delivering tiny kisses to her eyelashes in succession. She drew in a short breath at the action, and he pulled away hesitantly as he felt her tremble. She smiled again before leaning up to kiss him, her lips lingering a moment before breaking away. "Thank you, Roman."

"Anytime, Red," he whispered as her hand trailed up to his cheek once more.

"Roman."

"Yes?"

"Please…stay. In here," Ruby lowered her head onto his chest, her breath still hiccupping from her fading sobs.

"You know I shouldn't," he noted as he laid back down onto the mattress and pulled her down with him.

"I-I don't care. Please."

"Fine. On one condition."

"What?"

"No kisses when we first wake up in the morning."

Ruby sniffled and looked up at him in confusion. "Why not?"

"Because I happen to be male."

"What does that have to do with anything?"

"Haven't—you know what, I really don't feel like explaining this. You'll find out why in the morning."

"Oh-Okay…" Ruby flopped her head back onto Roman's chest and he brought a hand up to pet her hair.

"Just do me one favor, Red," he murmured, his eyes closing as he felt her breathing begin to even out.

"Hm?"

"Don't ever let me catch you crying on your own ever again. You don't have to hide these sort of things from me."

"But—"

"No buts, Red. If you need to cry, that's fine. Just don't hide it from me. Ever."

There was a pause of silence before Ruby spoke again, her voice soft and cracked. "Okay. I promise I won't."

oooOOOooo

Ruby woke up the next morning with a smile on her face, as the dream stuffed into her sleeping hours had been quite uplifting. She stirred a little and peeled her cheek away from Roman's chest, blushing a little at the sight of him. Momentarily she forgot his request from the night before and leaned up to kiss him on the lips. She lingered only a moment before pulling away and looking down, her brow knit together in confusion. What in the world was…poking her? Upon realization, Ruby's face went several shades darker and she began making small frantic squeaking noises.

"Didn't I say no kisses?" Roman mumbled blearily as he lifted a hand up to his head, his eyes still closed as he addressed the girl leaning on him.

"I-I-I-Is that why?" Ruby squeaked as she anxiously gestured towards the bulge in Roman's pajama pants.

"I see you've discovered the miraculous thing we adults like to refer to as morning wood," he replied with a drowsy smirk.

"I thought you could control yourself!"

"Oh I can control myself. Him on the other hand…well he kinda does what he wants."

Ruby let out soft wail and scrambled away from Roman, and he laughed at her flustered response.

"Dear lord Red, you are by far the most innocent girl that I've ever had the privilege of sharing a bed with." He paused a moment before speaking again. "Though to be fair most of the others preferred certain _recreations_ over cuddling."

"What does that…oh my god I did not need to know that Roman!"

The man let out another loud laugh just as Ruby grabbed a pillow and smacked him with it. "You know I didn't really think you'd catch my meaning, considering how innocent you are."

"You're disgusting!" she wailed as she tried to push him off the bed with the pillow.

"Oy, oy…at least wait until I'm awake to start attacking me, jeez…"

"You are awake!"

"Okay, wait til I'm less drows—whoa, Red, I do not like hanging off the bed this early in the morning!" Roman's eyes shot open as he fumbled to get back on the mattress before Ruby gave him one last push and he rolled rather gracelessly onto the floor. A loud thump came from next to the bed, and she peered over the edge just as a groan rose from his landing spot. "That was highly unpleasant, please don't ever do that again," he mumbled.

"Your fault for being a pervert."

"Having natural body functions does not make me a pervert, Red."

"Mentioning sex does!"

"Hmm…okay, I'll give you that one." Roman sighed and rose to his feet. "But do you think next time you could react in a way that doesn't leave me with bruises at…eight o'clock in the morning? I'd appreciate it."

Ruby blushed a little brighter as her mouth formed into a pout. "Fine."

"Wonderful," Roman yawned and did a quick stretch before his arms flopped down to his sides and he shuffled over to the dresser. "Well I'm going to take a shower and get dressed so you can just…play a game or something until the bathroom is free again." Roman paused before turning to the connected bathroom and looked Ruby over carefully. "Did you bring any toiletries with you?"

Ruby mulled over the thought a moment. She and Olive hadn't initially planned on being anywhere near a shower, so she'd neglected to pack anything more than her toothbrush and a comb. "I didn't bring any shower products or a towel," she admitted.

"Ah. Well, you can borrow one towel from me and a little bit of shampoo. And I think Neo left some shower gel in the guest bathroom last time she stayed the night. You can use that too."

"Okay," Ruby nodded before picking up Roman's scroll and opening up the side scrolling game that she'd become ever so fond of. She smirked and looked back at Roman. "I'll go get it after I beat your high score."

Roman scowled a little at that before opening the bathroom door. "Remember not to use your own name, you aren't the only person that snatches that thing from me."

"I thought you told your friends."

"I told my friends, not my business partners. Just don't use your name. Don't use 'Red' either. Okay?"

Ruby nodded before Roman slipped into the bathroom; she paused a moment to process what he had just told her. For one, Junior didn't work with or for him, and he considered Neo a friend more than an employee. But then…who were his business partners? Obviously he was working with the White Fang, but from what Blake had told her, he treated them more like underlings than he did comrades, and she doubted that he'd let any of them near his scroll. And then when Sun was in town…he'd said that in the speech they'd watched Roman give, he'd made a passing comment about "his employer". So…he hadn't told his higher ups? Ruby considered this a moment more before shaking off the thought. Roman was literally a room over in the shower and here she was, thinking about his alliances. But was it really all that bad to look into it?

She hesitated only a moment before exiting out of game and searching Roman's scroll for files regarding his jobs. The folder itself wasn't too hard to find, but it happened to be password protected. Ruby looked over to the bathroom door cautiously, her mouth setting into a hard line as she turned back and started thinking of possible passcodes.

_ Junior_

_ Neopolitan_

_ Ruby Rose_

All denied. It probably wouldn't have been a name anyhow. Ruby thought back to the last time she and Roman had discussed their interests and listed the number of quirks she'd discovered in their time together. A greeting, maybe? It might work. She sighed and typed in the one phrase that came to mind.

_Hello Red_

After a pause, the access code cleared and a loading screen appeared; Ruby let out a shuddered breath as she got cold feet once again. What in the world was she doing? After all the time she'd spent with Roman, it should've been painfully clear that he didn't trust anyone easily. He kept his work and his personal life separate and his only exception was Neo, who was not only loyal to him but also mute and thus unlikely to have a slip up. Whether he trusted her enough not to look or had simply forgotten the folder was there, by looking at this…she would be betraying him. Now she could come up with more than a few ways to justify her actions—after all, whatever he had planned was probably going to hurt more than a few people. Blake and Sun had told them about the speech he gave about toppling the world order, and having that as an end goal made it likely that the results of these jobs would be cataclysmic. If she got the jump on Roman and his partners…it could save people's lives.

But what was the cost?

Ruby swallowed hard as she felt her heart twist at her next revelation. If she gave this information, Roman might be caught by the authorities again. General Ironwood had petitioned the council to order his death and had succeeded. If Roman was caught…he was to be publicly executed. Ruby's breath caught in her throat at the thought of watching Roman die. She locked the scroll and tossed it to the mattress. She felt so wrong right now. Just a month ago if someone had told her to choose the world or Roman Torchwick…she would've chosen the world. All he had been back then was an awful monstrosiy that deserved it. She couldn't see him like that now.

In the month they'd spent together, she'd watched him transform from an evil beast into a man. Suddenly instead of being an annoying heartless bastard, he was funny and smart, sarcastic and honest, patient and…gentle. Ruby let out another shaky breath as she remembered how he'd comforted her the night before, how carefully he'd held her, how he'd kissed away her tears…how he'd told her that she didn't need to hide it from him. In the dream that followed, he'd even apologized for not noticing sooner. Ruby got up from the bed and strode from the room as the thought of Roman's death sentence surfaced once more. She knew she would want to cry at his execution; she knew that once she was alone, she would lose herself to those tears…and he wouldn't be there to hold her.

Ruby stormed through the rooms of Roman's apartment to the balcony and threw open the door, stepping out onto the terrace and taking in a deep breath of the morning air as the wind bit at her skin. Just breathe, she thought. Everything will be okay. He wasn't leaving. She didn't betray him. The world wasn't ending. Just breathe. Ruby sank to the floor and closed her eyes as she tried to even out her breaths and tame the wave panic that had swept over her. She knew by now that she'd been a fool. She couldn't get out of this now and she didn't want to. It had only been a month and she'd lost herself.

She'd fallen in love with Roman.

oooOOOooo

_Rosewick trash Peeves reporting in and oops my hand slipped and I wrote more angst. My bad. Anywho. I initially meant for this chapter to kinda act as a temporary closing for this little weekend arc but then the word count breached 2500 and I had to do a cliffie. Souhm…sorry but it'll be two to three chapters before we come back to this^…in the mean time I offer you fluffy Christmas giving and possibly fluffy New Year's resolutions. Yeh. Speaking of. Around Mid-January, I will be headed for college, and it's starting to look like this fanfic will not be finished or close to finished by then. In fact I don't even think hell will have broken loose by the time I'm in college. So warning, I will be slower with these updates, possibly a lot slower. But I won't stop writing. Now regarding reviews…._

_One of you mentioned that Ruby would never leave without her weapon…this is honestly very probably true, however I needed Roman to have a valid argument against her staying in the park because I need them to spend the weekend together so that certain story arcs for the future can happen so just allow the one inconsistency pls I promise I'll try to avoid them as much as possible from now on._

_One of you asked if I was planning more graphic love scenes for Roman and Ruby…honestly, I want to, I will guiltily admit that I have imagined this happening on more than one occasion and the thought makes me squeal with delight. However. At the current moment, Roman and Ruby have only been together for a month, and to top that off, the age of consent, to my knowledge, is sixteen, meaning that any sexual activity between the two before Ruby's sixteenth birthday would count as statutory rape even if the act was consensual. So…no sex yet, sorry. Especially since Ruby is currently too innocent to want to see Roman naked or want to be naked in his presence. Yeah._

_One of you mentioned that I am responsible for making you Rosewick Trash. You are welcome ^^ _

_Same person also asked if I'd planned on any direct interference…maybe. No yes or no on that, just…maybe._

_One of you mentioned Olive's near immediate acceptance of Roman…heh, about that. Olive is a dunce, a naïve, enthusiastic, and highly trusting dunce. She's the type of sheltered person that, despite fighting monsters and wanting to be a huntress, has some weird unwavering faith in humanity. To put it lightly, she's the type of idiot who would trust that shady guy with the white van and not think for a moment that he didn't have candy. Hope that explains why she doesn't question Roman. Also added factor that Olive becomes highly distracted by pretty things and pretty girls. And then there was Neo. –suggestive eyebrow waggle-_

_So. Next chapter we will start our Rosewick Christmas! –throws confetti- In the meantime, you can follow my tumblr at alice—with-a-bowtie dot tumblr dot com for little extras, headcanons, and just if you wanna watch me dick around [cuz I do that a lot] and if you possibly want to look into my original works [which I would really really appreciate I swear to god] you can find me on fictionpress dot com under the pen name Melody Hallows. If you decide to look me up, I would suggest either my main story, A Dreamgiver's Tale, Sensa Nome, or Encounters of the Curious Kind. Yeh. So._

_Rosewick trash Peeves out until next chapter_


	15. A Very Rosewick Christmas part one

A Very Rosewick Christmas [part one]

_~Attention all! The following is the aforementioned Christmas special and is compliant with my story up to chapter 14! There are no major spoilers to the upcoming plot as this is a lull in the storyline that occurs in between the events of chapter 14 and the not-yet-written chapter 15! Now then, enjoy.~_

That tree looked dangerous. At least, Roman thought so. It looked more like the result of a three year-old's arts and crafts project than it did a conifer, if you asked him. If it didn't topple over under the weight of the ornaments strewn across its fake branches, it might catch on fire from an electrical spark. One thing was for sure though. Roman would never, ever trust Ruby or any of her friends with interior design after seeing this abominable insult to fake foliage.

"D'you have some sort of fascination with Christmas trees?"

Roman glanced over at Ruby, who had only just stirred from bed and was looking at him with somewhat drowsy eyes. "Actually, I'm simply wondering which of you is responsible for this hideous brain child," he remarked as he gestured to the tree.

"Hey!"

"Oh…were you the mastermind behind this monstrosity? Seems my guess was right on the money." Ruby growled a little as he chuckled and knelt down to look at the space beneath the tree. "Where are all the presents?"

"They don't get put out until Christmas Eve!"

"Ah. So one more night then." Roman smirked and strolled over to Ruby's bed, lifting himself up onto the bedframe beneath it. He had since grown comfortable enough with their makeshift furnishings to justify leaning on her bed. "Did you get anything for me?"

"You still haven't told me where we're meeting."

"You know the way to my place."

"So Olive and I are just supposed to meet you there?"

"Precisely."

"Huh," Ruby leaned towards Roman and brushed her lips lightly against his. "Out of curiosity, have you decorated at all since the last time I saw your apartment?"

"Not even a little."

"We're going to have to fix that."

"I'm not stringing up little lights in my house just for two days of the year, especially when I'm this busy. I'm letting you come to the gift exchange, don't push it."

"It's not Christmas without a Christmas tree."

"Then I suppose you aren't celebrating Christmas either, because the glittery mess behind me is anything but a Christmas tree."

Ruby scowled and nudged Roman, making him stumble back off the bedframe as he laughed. "Don't make fun of my Christmas tree!" She slipped off the bed after him and aimed a few kicks at his shins, and he continued to snicker as she successfully backed him up against the bookshelf.

"Alright Red, it can pass for a Christmas tree," he smirked and pulled her close to him by the waist. "But you still aren't decorating my apartment."

"Yes I am."

"No you aren't."

"I will."

"You won't."

"Fine, I won't."

"There we go…"

"I'll have Olive do it instead. She'll be able to sneak out to your apartment tomorrow rather easily." A smirk played at Ruby's lips as she watched Roman's eyes narrow at that.

"I won't let her in."

"That'd be a bad idea."

"How so?"

"I didn't tell you what Olive does when you lock a door on her, did I?"

"No…should I be worried?"

"If the possibility of Olive loudly wailing 'I'm Henry the Eighth I Am' on your doorstep would draw to much attention to you then…yeah, I think it'd be alright to worry."

Roman groaned. "Really?"

"Yeah."

Roman sighed and held the bridge of his nose with his free hand. "Of all the possible reactions to being locked out…fine, but you are not making my house throw up Christmas the same way your dorm did." he nodded to the heavily decorated room around him, as every surface had been lined with tinsel and holly of every imaginable shiny color. How any of them managed to sleep in a place as loud and clustered as this was a mystery to him.

"Well Yang and Weiss won't be helping us decorate so that won't be a problem." Ruby rested her chin on his chest and he glanced down at her. "Why are you such a Scrooge about Christmas anyhow?"

"I'm not really, I just got used to not celebrating it this much when I was little. Junior and I started exchanging gifts a few years back and that's the only holiday tradition I have. And as far as I'm concerned, it's enough."

Ruby puffed her cheeks out childishly. "But you keep trying to avoid decorating."

"Because it's a hassle."

"No, it's _fun_. And you didn't bake any cookies!"

"Because I can't bake."

"I could have helped you!"

"You were always busy when I was free, remember? Why are you so stuck on this?"

"Because I don't like having a Scrooge for a boyfriend."

Roman laughed and patted Ruby's head as she let out a slight childish whine. "If I were a Scrooge, I would be working on Christmas Day."

"You might as well be with you pitiful amount of Christmas cheer."

"Oy," Roman lifted her head away from his chest and pressed his forehead against hers, smirking all the while. "I'm letting you decorate, don't push your luck."

Red responded with a small peck on the lips and a grin. "Only telling the truth," she giggled as she pulled away.

"No, you're teasing."

"Even if I was, you do it to me all the time."

"No I don't."

"That is such a lie!"

"Alright, alright, I admit it," Roman gave Ruby another slow lingering kiss before pulling away slightly. "I make fun of you a lot."

"Meanie."

"It's your own fault, you make it so easy."

"I do not!"

"You do too."

Ruby puffed her cheeks out again and Roman chuckled.

"You really are too adorable sometimes Red."

"Shut up."

"Make me."

He smirked as Red pouted a little more before crushing her lips against his in a near aggressive fashion, her lips parted just enough to let his tongue through and her stifled moan barely audible enough to excite him. He pulled her closer; his hands traced her spine lightly before flattening firmly on the line and holding her up against him. Roman smiled a little as he felt Ruby trail her arms up his torso and over his shoulders. The kissing lasted a few moments longer, each one became a little more heated than the last until their lips came together for a lingering kiss. They broke apart slowly with somewhat goofy smiles and matching red-tinted cheeks, their breath still a little heavy as Roman pressed his forehead back against hers.

"You are getting remarkably good at silencing me," he murmured with a smirk.

"I've had a lot of practice by now," Red replied.

"This is true," Roman chuckled, "So I'll see you tomorrow evening and the night after?"

"Tomorrow if I can get there."

_"It's a date then."_

oooOOOooo

Ruby left the room a little early the next morning, mostly out of courtesy for her still comatose teammates but also because she and Olive's whereabouts the following evening were somewhat of a secret. Well, that was the nice way of saying that Ruby had lied again. So here she was, sitting comfortably outside her room at some odd hour of the morning, waiting for Olive to pick up her scroll.

"Come on Olive, wake up…"

_["Mnnm?"]_

"Olive! Hi, we need to talk."

_["…Ruby…? Whattimeizzsshhit…?"]_

"About quarter to five in the morning, look I need your help."

_["…can it wait…? M'sposed togetthere atten…"]_

"Roman's apartment isn't decorated for the holidays yet," Ruby explained quickly.

She paused a moment while the speaker on Olive's scroll muffled with the sound of moving sheets as the girl on the end of the line sprung awake.

_["Repeat that."]_

"Roman hasn't decorated his apartment at all."

Olive gasped loudly on the other end. _["Blasphemy!"]_

"Can you fix it?"

_["I may or may not be able to definitely solve this dilemma."]_

"I take it that's a yes."

_["I'll get go fetch the emergency tinsel! Is it alright if I don't pay you a visit at Beacon?"]_

"It's fine," Ruby chuckled, "So long as my boyfriend's apartment becomes all Christmas-ey."

_["What's the excuse for me crashing at Roman's again?"]_

"You're staying with your cousins in Vale."

_["…But I don't have any cousins in Vale."]_

"My team and the others don't know that."

_["Not even Yang?"]_

"Yang tries really hard to forget that you're friends with me whenever you aren't around."

_["Ouch. She still doesn't like me?"]_

"Normally I don't think it would matter to her much but I think she still hasn't forgiven you for your prank phase and that one incident involving her hair."

_["But that was an accident!"]_

"She was Signal's best joke for two weeks because of it."

_["I was eight!"]_

"Her first crush called her lame because of it."

_["Oh…uh…didn't I apologize…?"]_

"Yeah but I think she still wanted me to let her beat you up."

_["Oh. Well anyway, I have tinsel and ornaments to gather and you need to go back in and pretend we aren't visiting your secret boyfriend tomorrow."]_

"Heh. Thanks Olive. I'll try to stop by sometime this evening to see how everything's going."

_["Okay! See you!"]_

"Bye bye," Ruby smiled as her friend hung up and did a small stretch. She yawned and rose to enter her dorm room. It wouldn't hurt to get a little more sleep.

oooOOOooo

"For the last time, Olive, you have put up more than enough tinsel and you are not putting up any mistletoe," Roman rubbed his temples in an attempt to release his frustration without blowing a new hole into Olive, whose aggravating persistence had fit his apartment with lights, stockings and a kitchen buried in cookies for Santa.

"Mistletoe is a Christmas must-have, Roman!" Olive stomped her foot childishly and Roman let out a long sigh.

"I would not mind the addition of mistletoe all over my house if not for the fact that of the four of you that will be here for the gift exchange, there are three of you that I never ever want to kiss while I'm still living."

"Tongue is optional, you know."

"Whether or not tongue is optional is irrelevant, I refuse to allow any object that might force me to kiss you, Neo, or Junior, actually, especially Junior," Roman re-opened the book on his lap and glared up at Olive one last time. "I said no, I meant it."

She whined childishly, and shuffled into the adjacent room. "You really are a Scrooge."

"If banning mistletoe is what it takes, so be it."

Olive let out another whine just as someone knocked on the door.

"Do you think you could make yourself useful, and get that, Olive?"

"Fine…"

Roman smiled and read a few more sentences of his book as Olive shuffled over to the door and opened it. Sadly he was ill-prepared for the ungodly commotion that followed.

"NEO!" a loud thwack resonated through the apartment and was followed by a loud sigh from Junior.

"Christ kid, at least let us get through the door first!"

"You got my message!"

"This thing is not light for either of us and you're not helping, kid."

Roman put down his book at that. Thing…? Did he…? Roman stood from his recliner and walked into the hall to see Junior and Neo struggling to carry a somewhat large Christmas tree as Olive latched onto Neo and threatened to topple them all. He nearly laughed but instead he let out a low groan. "I feel betrayed now. You two are supposed to be _my_ friends."

"Well we are your friends, and frankly I've been trying to get you to decorate for years now, I'm not going to miss the opportunity," Junior managed a slight shrug before glaring down at Olive, "Seriously, kid, I'm beginning to lose my balance here, get off!"

"Olive, please, detach yourself from Neo until they've carried that in."

"Oh. Oopsie." Olive let go of Neo and scuttled out of the doorway, earning a short glare from the woman before she and Junior continued to haul the tree inside.

"Where do you want it?" Junior grunted.

"Not in my apartment."

"Roman."

"Fine…the living room."

"Alright." Junior and Neo turned for the living area and Roman heard a familiar giggle; he tilted his head to look past the tree and smirked at the sight of Ruby, despite the fact that she was carrying a large box of what was probably ornaments and the stand for the Christmas tree.

"Aren't you a little early?"

"It's nearly seven," Red smiled and stepped through the door, "I told everyone that I was checking to make sure Olive got here okay, so I have a little bit of time."

"And what exactly are you carrying?"

"Well, I kinda ran into Junior and Neo on the way over and they had a lot of stuff, so I offered to be their little helper."

"Are you saying you aren't responsible for the tree they're trying to set up in my living area?"

"Well I didn't tell Junior to bring it," Ruby smirked.

"Nope, I asked him to!" Olive interjected, stepping in between the two momentarily to grab the tree stand. "Swiped Roman's scroll to give him a call. Now I'll help set up the tree so you two lovebirds can get back to what you're doing…" Olive winked at her friend just as she left the room, causing a severe blush to sprout on her face.

"Olive!"

Roman laughed as Red's gaze shot back towards him and she began sputtering madly. "Well I'll give your friend credit on one account, she does know when to remove herself from the equation. But I thought we agreed that my home wasn't going to throw up Christmas like your dorm did." Roman gestured to the lights and various holiday themed wreaths hung on the doors in the hallway.

Ruby merely smiled and shook her head. "This isn't Christmas puke, this is actually quite nice. Elegant even. Fits in with your normal décor."

He squinted at that. "Christmas puke?"

"Well you did say 'throw up Christmas'."

"Well that phrasing made it sound ten times worse…"

"It means the same thing!"

"Christ, Red, you simply aren't good with words, are you?"

Ruby puffed out her cheeks childishly. "Shut up."

Roman chuckled at that and leaned towards her. "It's kinda cute, you know."

"You're teasing again."

"I can't help myself when you make it this easy."

She looked away at that. "Meanie."

"Aw come on," he smirked and pressed hand against Red's cheek and her gaze came back to him just as he leaned in to kiss her. She returned the affection, leaning her cheek into his palm as he held her there for a few more moments. They parted slowly, sharing small smiles before the sound of someone clearing their throat forced them to return to reality. Roman sighed and straightened himself before turning to Junior, who was leaning on the entrance to the living room. "Yes?"

"Need I say jail bait?" Junior asked as he crossed his arms.

"The definition of jail baiting does not include five second kisses, Junior."

"Are you certain about that?"

"Very."

"Well regardless, can you keep the public displays of affection to a minimum?"

"And since when was it your job to be my personal chaperone?"

"Since you decided to be an idiot and date a fifteen year old."

"You know, I've been waiting for you to get over that for months now," Roman sighed. "Fine. I won't kiss her in your presence, now can we get this decorating nightmare over with?"

"Sure, if you can try to have a little more Christmas cheer."

"I'm not cheerful for a good reason!" Roman insisted as he pushed past Junior. "You're my best friend and yet you're helping my girlfriend's friend put an obnoxiously large pine tree in my living room against my will! Did I mention the _obnoxiously large_ part?" Roman gestured to the tree one last time for emphasis.

"Isn't your favorite saying 'Go big of go home'?"

Roman groaned and stomped over to his recliner, slumping back into it and retrieving his book from the arm. "Fine. Do what you want, just don't break anything." Roman went back to reading his book as the group talked amongst themselves and continued setting up without him. He honestly didn't mind their enthusiasm about Christmas all that much, he just didn't like the prospect of cleaning up the mess in a few days' time. But he elected to say nothing more on the matter as Ruby and the others gleefully hung ornaments on the tree, only looking up from his book momentarily and snorting a bit at the sight of Olive lifting Neo onto her shoulders so the shorter women could put the star on the tree. But Roman didn't say a word and returned to his book; he had made it through several chapters before Ruby finally came up to him.

"Whatcha reading?"

"Murder mystery," Roman said shortly.

"Is it good?"

"It's not bad."

"Hm. Uh, we finished the tree, by the way."

Roman looked up nonchalantly and indeed found a fully decorated tree in the middle of his living area. "Lovely." He could nearly feel Red fidgeting nervously as he looked back down at his book.

"…Are you still angry?"

"About what?"

"About the decorating."

"Slightly irked, admittedly," Roman looked over at Ruby, "What time is it?"

"Almost half past eight."

He stared at her a moment before the information registered. "You have to go."

"Yeah…wouldn't want my friends to start looking for me…"

"Did I literally just spend your entire visit sulking?"

"Yup."

"Huh." He gazed at Red thoughtfully for a moment before reaching out and pulling her close to him by the waist. She squeaked a little in surprise as he pulled her onto his lap, blushing profusely from the contact. "I suppose I'll have to be quick then?"

"I-I have to go, Roman," Ruby managed.

"Can I have a goodbye kiss first?"

She blushed a little brighter at that, but nonetheless leaned in to place a slow kiss on his lips. They lingered for a moment before parting, and Roman brought both hands up to her cheeks as he placed another kiss on her forehead. "I have to go now," she murmured lightly.

"See you tomorrow?"

"Right after dinner?"

"Yeah."

"Okay," Ruby placed another peck on Roman's lips before standing and moving towards the door. "Oh, one last thing."

"Yes?"

"Merry Christmas."

He smiled at her a moment, pausing only a moment before responding.

"Merry Christmas, Red."

oooOOOooo

_Rosewick trash Peeves reporting in and dear lord I really don't feel good about this chapter. It's probs cuz even though I have the entire Christmas special planned to the t, my brain is practically glued to the ideas I have for chapter 15. Oh geez xP Anywho. Not much to tell you about anything really I'm going to try to make the next part of this^ your gift on Christmas day [hopefully it'll come out easier] and at this point I'm actually not sure if I'm still up for a New Year's special. A two chapter break from the actual storyline is already taking a toll on my sanity, so I can't imagine what it's doing to yours._

_Regarding reviews…I really didn't get that many on the last chapter but one of you suggested a rosewick fic to me, another asked my age, and another congratulated me on college. Regarding the first…while I appreciate your enthusiastic promotion and I'm sure the author of the story was pleased as well, I…don't do kidnap-Ruby fics. I can't get into them for multiple reasons and the chief reason is that I find Roman and Ruby far too out of character for my willing suspension of disbelief to kick in. I know that coming from the girl writing about shared dreams that may sound odd, but I can handle unbelievable scenarios better than I handle what I see as out of character moments._

_Regarding the second…I'm nineteen going on twenty. And the third…thanks a bunch hun ^^ [now I just need to sit down with my mum and figure out my living accommodations _ ]_

_Well, with that I leave you._

_Rosewick trash Peeves out until next chapter._


	16. A Very Rosewick Christmas part two

A Very Rosewick Christmas [part two]

Ruby was late. Granted, not terribly late but late enough to make her fidgety and anxious to the point of being completely unable to sit still. Taking public transit had been an unavoidable, impossibly huge mistake. This train moved slower than she did on a bad day, but due to her fancy state of dress and large bag of presents, she'd been left with no choice. As the train reached the stop closest to Roman's apartment, Ruby nearly sped through the opening car doors before remembering that Yang had once again forced her into heels and she was anything but steady on her feet in them. Stupid heels.

So she instead settled for a frantic speed walk down the busy streets of Vale, taking the most crowded route as per Roman's instructions. According to him she'd be harder to spot within a large group than she would if she ducked into a somewhat abandoned back alley. That and the removal of her hood until she was in his apartment building. That wasn't too much to ask of her (even if she did feel somewhat naked without her hood) and it certainly served her well to remove it, as she made it into the building without a single hiccup. Ruby crossed the expanse of the lobby as quickly as she could without having an accident related to her annoying fancy footwear.

As soon as she made it into the elevator she donned her hood once more. Ruby straightened out her garments carefully as she studied her reflection in the metallic elevator doors. Besides the admittedly cute black high heels Yang had forced her into, she had opted to wear a faux fur-lined version of her hood and a slightly shiny red dress with a little black corset sewn onto it. She blushed a little as she imagined Roman's reaction to this dress. Hopefully he wouldn't think it was too much. As the elevator doors opened to the top floor, Ruby wobbled unsteadily into the hallway and towards Roman's apartment, whimpering softly under her breath as she realized just how silly she must've looked.

She reached the front door and knocked hesitantly; her stomach was beginning to turn from how anxious she was and the feeling was far from pleasant. The door swung open to reveal Olive on the other side, and Ruby's heart sunk a little as she took note of her friend's very casual Christmas sweater. Olive herself didn't seem to register the drastic difference in their attire and instead let out and excited squeal.

"You look so pretty!"

"I'm overdressed…"

"Nonsense, you're gorgeous! Come in! Your boyfriend needs to see this!"

"I need to see what now?"

Ruby glanced past her friend as Roman's voice trailed out from the living room, leaving her distracted enough to be forcefully yanked through the doorway and nearly lose her balance.

"Have you eaten already?"

"Yeah…"

"Oh. Well we still have some ordervy things left if you want some."

"The proper term is hors d'oeuvres, Olive," Junior stated bluntly as they entered the living room.

"Ordervy things sounds cuter," she insisted.

"Honestly I think both wor—whoa!" Ruby wobbled a moment and nearly fell over before Junior caught her mid-fall and helped her right herself.

"You alright kid?"

"Stupid lady stilts…" Ruby managed weakly in response as she pouted. A somewhat indescribable sound followed the mumbled phrase and all eyes shot to Roman, who had been taking a gulp of his brandy and was now choking on it.

After a few moments of sputtering as he literally held back his laughter with one hand, he finally managed to form words. "Dear lord, Red! Are you trying to kill me?"

"No..."

"Well for the record, you nearly succeeded," he managed weakly as he held his hand over his eyes, his body still visibly shaken by his laughter.

"It wasn't that funny you know," Ruby's eyes narrowed at Roman as she handed her bag of gifts over to Olive and wobbled over to him.

"I'd argue the contrary."

"Meanie."

"Hey, I can't help what amuses me all that much," he stated firmly as he looked up at her, all signs of his laughter slowly dissipating as his eyes wandered across her attire. "Well someone certainly dressed for the occasion."

"Is it too much?"

"Define too much," Roman reached out for Ruby and pulled her onto his lap, causing her blush to intensify a little.

"Is it too fancy?"

"I wouldn't say so," he smiled and brought his fingers up underneath her chin. "I'd say you look rather beautiful actually." Ruby felt her cheeks grow impossibly hotter as he pulled her in for a kiss, one that was rather short but deep enough to satisfy her current craving.

"Ahem."

Roman pulled away abruptly and looked over at Junior with an irritated look plastered across his visage. "She's my girlfriend, Junior, I'm going to kiss her."

Junior simply let out what was probably some light agitated groan but turned away to see if the presents under the tree were ready to be doled out yet. Roman smirked as he did and turned back to Ruby.

"Would you like me to help you with your lady stilts?" his smirk transformed into an impish grin as she began to scowl.

"You're never going to let that go, are you?"

"Probably not. If anything I think that's my new favorite term for heels."

"Meanie."

Roman chuckled and pecked Ruby on the lips before moving a hand down to her shoes and starting to untie the ribbon around her ankle. Ruby started kicking her feet lightly in retaliation.

"Stop it! I can take off my shoes on my own!"

"I don't mind doing it for you."

"I can do it on my own!"

"Oh come on, Red, don't be a baby, I'm closer to your feet than you are, I'll get it done faster. So if you'll just stop kicking…"

"No, I'll do it myself!" Ruby tried to reach for her feet and was pushed away by Roman, who was still trying to unlace the first heel. The two quickly reverted to childish wrestling as she tried to reach her foot and he continued to push her away. After a few minutes of ridiculous flailing, their play fight ceased and Roman put his hands up in defeat.

"You know what, Red? Fine, do it yourself."

"Thank you." Ruby reached down for her heels and Roman wrapped his arms around her and pressed a kiss into her neck.

"You are far too cute sometimes."

"I'm not cute, I'm angry!" she refuted.

"Of course you are, Red." Roman placed another kiss on her neck and she turned away from him just enough to make eye contact with Olive and Neo, who were cuddling on the couch as they watched the two intently.

"Uh, Roman, m-maybe I should find my own seat," Ruby squeaked as the heat returned to her cheeks.

"Oh don't stop on our account," Olive spoke up with a smirk, and nuzzled her head a little further into the crook of Neo's neck. The smaller woman pulled out her scroll and typed up a message that she then showed to Olive, who smiled a little wider at its content. "Yes, yes they are. Very adorable children."

"Now I'm offended," Roman spoke up as he leaned over Ruby's shoulder. "I am a fully grown adult, thank you."

Neo typed up another message and presented it to Roman.

_Roman my dear, if you were to look up 'child' in any dictionary, you would be the accompanying picture._

Ruby snorted and Roman let out a low groan. "Honestly Neo, I'm not nearly as childish as the person sitting on me."

"Hey!"

_Okay, I'll give you that one._

"Heeeeeeyy!"

"I know you all are enjoying your little couple time over there but can we get to the gift exchange now?"

All eyes were suddenly on Junior, who was leaning on the wall by the tree with his arms crossed, looking somewhat uncomfortable and disappointed for being all by his lonesome.

"I suppose we could open a few Christmas presents, since that is what we're all supposed to be here for," Roman shrugged nonchalantly.

"I call first dibs!" Olive announced loudly before scrambling away from Neo and diving for the gift pile. "Alrighty, so…" Olive dug through the pile and pulled out a package that Ruby immediately recognized as her own gift to her friend. "From Ruby, to…me! Thanks Ruby!" Olive beamed like a child before tearing away the wrapping paper and opening the box. She squealed with delight and held up a somewhat hideous Christmas themed sweater before holding the rather enormous thing up to her body. "It's perfect!"

"Perfectly distasteful," Roman remarked dryly, earning himself a flick in the forehead from Ruby.

"Kinda heavy…wait, is that?" Olive dug her hand down into the sweater abruptly; a small click was heard and small lights began twinkling across the surface of the garment, causing Olive's already huge grin to widen even more with pure delight.

"Oh dear god," Junior commented with an edge of concern in his voice.

"There's one more thing in the box, Olive," Ruby spoke up with a smile, and her friend's head whipped back to the abandoned package and she moved to rummage through it. She straightened back up and held a book out in front of her, squinting a little at its title.

"'How to Woo Your Lady in 50 Easy Steps'…I will make this book my new religion," Olive stated firmly, causing Neo to slap herself in the forehead.

"Well if Olive is converting to the romance religion I suppose we won't be decorating for Christmas next year," Roman mused.

"Ruby, please smack him upside the head for that," Junior addressed the young girl on his lap with a note of exasperation and she complied with his request promptly.

"You know I really don't like it when you guys gang up on me," Roman whined a little before repositioning Ruby on his lap and hugging her tight enough so that she wouldn't be able to reach his head again.

"Your fault for being a sore baby," Ruby remarked as Roman blew out a short sigh and leaned his chin on her shoulder.

"I'm not a baby."

"Did I get anything from Neo?" Olive looked over at the woman and Neo sighed before pulling an envelope from her suit and holding it out to the girl. Olive rose to her feet and moved for Neo before her gaze fell back to her new Christmas sweater. She paused a moment to stare at it before pulling off her old sweater and throwing on the new one, giving herself a nod of approval and proceeding to shuffle over to Neo.

Olive plucked the envelope from her hands and sat down, reclaiming her previous cuddling position in a matter of moments as she opened up the envelope. "Let's see…movie tickets, dinner reservations…ooo a letter," Olive moved again so that her head was on Neo's lap as she opened up the letter and began reading it. As she scanned the page, her cheeks flushed darker and darker, and by the end of the letter she'd begun quietly squealing into Neo's stomach. Neo responded by apathetically patting the girl on the head before typing up a message on her scroll.

_Junior's turn next, I have an attachment._

"Okay…" Junior sighed and knelt down in front of the tree, grabbing a number of similarly shaped presents. "From Neo…Merlot again?" Junior held out the unwrapped wine bottle and looked it over with a somewhat unreadable expression as Neo nodded at him. He sighed and muttered a short "thank you" before retrieving the next present from the pile.

"So what kind did you get me this year, Roman?"

"You'll have to open it to find out," Roman replied with a smirk.

Junior chuckled a little and ripped open the paper, holding out yet another wine bottle as he read the label. "Cabernet Saugvignon…huh, well-aged…well known wine maker…you've outdone yourself this year, Roman."

"You know I always find you the good stuff."

"True. Now for the only vaguely bottle like present that worries me…from Olive…?" Junior shot a cautious glance at the young girl latched to Neo's midsection before shrugging and proceeding to open the present, muttering a little about how irritated he would be if he'd gotten sparkling cider. Instead the bottle that greeted him made his eyes widen with surprise—it seemed that the beverage in his hands was quite unexpected. "How in the world—this is a world _renowned _company—and an _Amontillado_ at that—you aren't even at the drinking age! How did you find this?"

"My daddy owns Gardner's Wines and Spirits," Olive replied simply as she poked her head out from her curled up position in Neo's lap.

"Your daddy—your father _owns _a multi-million dollar wine company? Please tell me you're joking."

"She isn't," Ruby cut in.

"My daddy's rich," Olive stated blankly.

"Never thought I'd see the day that I'd be outdone by a fifteen year old," Roman remarked.

"Um…" Ruby looked up at Roman quizzically, and he let out a dramatic sigh.

"Alright that is not the same, Red, you don't count."

"I definitely count," she insisted.

"Hush, allow the pretense Red," Roman pressed a finger to the girl's lips and she giggled.

"Look who's the sore loser now?" Ruby smiled as Roman pouted and pecked her on the forehead.

"Ahem."

Ruby look over at Junior, who was now holding her present and waiting for her and Roman. "Oh, sorry…" Ruby chuckled lightly and Junior grunted before opening his present.

"I'm honestly not much of a reader," he stated frankly as he turned the now unwrapped book over in his hands.

"I think you'll like that one," Ruby noted as he held it up to read the title.

"'152 Ways to Defend Yourself Against Sass'…where has this been all my life?"

"I _thought _that I'd burned all of those years ago," Roman remarked with a smirk.

"So it _was_ you."

"Guilty as charged."

"Thanks Ruby, I'm definitely going to make use of this." Junior smiled and began flipping through the book as Roman let out a small whine and Ruby giggled as he nuzzled her face into her neck.

"Now I have nothing to use against him."

"I'm sure you'll find a loophole somehow," Ruby replied as he pressed a kiss onto the back of her neck.

"Okay, my turn to open presents, up you go Red," Roman patted her on the arm and Ruby stood from his lap and frowned.

"Whatever happened to ladies first?"

"I don't see any ladies in here," Roman remarked with a smirk as he walked up to the tree to locate his presents, winning himself a glare from Neo, an arm flail from Olive, and an offended wail from Ruby.

"Oy," a muffled mumble came from Olive as she continued to nuzzle her face into Neo's stomach.

"Romaaaaaaaan!" Ruby nuzzled the crown of her head into his back and he chuckled while he collected his presents.

"Calm down, Red, you'll get your turn."

"That probably isn't what offended every woman in the room Roman," Junior noted as he glanced up from his book.

"True," Roman returned to his seat with his presents and Ruby whined a bit before flopping down in front of his chair, "but you should all know that I avoid the details when it's convenient to me."

"Yeah yeah," Junior waved off the comment and returned to his book.

"So…let's start with the biggest…"

Ruby watched intently as Roman singled out a large rectangular box wrapped in shiny paper that she recognized as Olive's. Roman eyed the box suspiciously before carefully unwrapping it, his fingers working at the taped edges with delicacy in an attempt to keep the paper intact. The removal of the shimmering Christmas wrap unveiled a shoebox, which Roman perked an eyebrow at and studied, hesitating to open the box for a few moments. After a little more stalling, he lifted the lid, peeking inside a mere moment before slapping the box shut and swearing under his breath. Ruby's brow knit together as Roman's cheeks suddenly went uncharacteristically pink, his eyes wandering the room frantically to avoid looking at the present in his lap. After a moment he finally spoke up in a short, barely audible rasp.

"Oh my _god_, Olive."

oooOOOooo

Roman had to hand it to Ruby. Despite initially thinking that this exchange would be far more chaotic and troublesome than previous years, instead he'd found himself pleasantly surprised by how enjoyable the evening had been. With the exception of Olive's gift. That had been unexpected, inappropriate and uncalled for. That gift had been given to Junior. And would probably be burned. But the rest of the evening had not so much as a single hiccup as every gift after that one had been much appreciated, and by the end of the night everyone was getting ready to leave as Olive continued to complain about how everyone had scolded her.

"I was just try to hel—ow!" Olive whined as Neo flicked her in the forehead for the twentieth time and forced the taller girl into her coat before pushing her towards the door. Neo typed up a note on her scroll and held it out to Roman.

_I'll be taking her to my place this evening._

"Fine by me, Neo," Roman replied lightly before Neo nodded at him and typed up another message.

_Merry Christmas Roman._

He smiled and leaned down to peck Neo on the cheek. "Merry Christmas Neo."

_Try not to be a Scrooge after we leave, okay?_

"Whatever."

"Oy, I didn't put that tree up for nothing, try to be more cheerful," Junior walked up to Roman as he threw is overcoat on, frowning slightly as his friend's smirk widened.

"I did the gift exchange, I got my house decorated, I've been nothing but a picture of Christmas cheer all night."

"That's a laugh."

"At least give me credit for pretending, alright?"

"Fine. Come here." Junior held his arms out and Roman reluctantly accepted his friend's bear hug, coughing a bit as one large hand slapped him in the back twice before he was released. "Merry Christmas, junior," the taller man smiled and ruffled Roman's hair, winning an annoyed whine as the shorter struggled against his hand.

"I am _far _too old for head pats, Junior, and also far too old for that nickname," Roman pushed Junior's hand away from his head and crossed his arms, lips pursed and eyes glaring at his friend with mock disdain. "Merry Christmas," he murmured to the ground.

Junior let out a small chuckle and patted Roman on the arm before following Neo and Olive out the front door. Roman smirked and followed him with his eyes until he heard a small awkward cough in sprout up next to him. He turn to look at Ruby, who was smiling sheepishly and swinging her arms, probably in attempt to ward off her ever apparent anxiousness.

"So…I suppose I'll see you tonight?"

"When did I say you were allowed to leave?"

"I have to go back to my dorm tonight Roman."

"Not until I've given you my present."

Ruby's brow knit together and turned down to her bag of opened presents. "I thought you did…?"

Roman glanced at the Beowulf plushie at the top of the bag thoughtfully, shrugging a little and making a small nod, as she was not entirely wrong. "Not all of it. I saved a bit of it for later. And by later I mean now."

"Okay…?" Ruby tilted her head before he leaned down and planted a soft kiss on her lips while one hand held her jawline lightly.

"Follow me," Roman murmured as he pulled away, smirking a little at Red's somewhat flushed face.

"Mkay," Ruby nodded as Roman straightened himself and started down the hallway, followed by an ever unsteady heel-clad Ruby.

"I think you need a little more practice walking in lady stilts, Red," Roman commented as he reached the end of the hall and opened the door up to the apartment building roof.

"Shut up," she mumbled, "Where are we going?"

"Well we aren't going anywhere until you put on a proper coat," Roman replied as he nodded to Ruby's cloak, which happened to be her only form of covering.

"This is enough," Ruby insisted.

"It's not, I know how cold it is outside," he frowned and leaned over to retrieve the crimson overcoat he'd given her during from her bag. "Put it on."

She crossed her arms in defiance. "I don't wanna."

"You've forced my hand Red…" Roman sighed and pulled her towards him, unclipping her cloak as she began squirming and struggling against the coat.

"No no no no no no I don't need it Roman!" Ruby tried to get away in vain as he managed to get one arm into the first sleeve.

"Yes you do," he responded bluntly as he got her other arm into the second sleeve and turned her around so he could button the coat. "You can be such a baby sometimes…oh god Ruby, don't make that face at me, you'll distract me with how adorable you are." He chuckled as she pouted ever so childishly while staring up at him with halfhearted Bambi eyes.

"Meanie," she mumbled.

"Watching out for your health can hardly be called 'mean', Red," Roman finished buttoning the coat before re-clipping her cloak for her and grabbing his own winter coat. "Honestly, how did you even think that was okay?"

"I do what I want," Ruby mumbled and crossed her arms again.

"No you don't."

"Do too."

"Do not."

"Do too!"

"Seriously Red…" Roman shook his head as he wrapped his winter scarf around his neck and put on his hat. "What am I going to do with you…?"

Ruby shot a glare at him but in a split her expression softened to one of confusion. "Where's your normal coat?"

Roman glanced down at his black pea coat momentarily before smirking up at her. "Some of us don't want to catch pneumonia."

Her eyes immediately narrowed at the comment. "My cloak is warm enough…"

"I thought we'd already covered this…now then," Roman leaned down and lifted Ruby up bridal style, causing her to kick her feet in retaliation.

"I can walk on my own!"

"This is true, however you are far too slow in your lady stilts."

"Romaaaan!"

He laughed and started up the staircase, Ruby whining a little as she threw her arms over his shoulders to hold herself steady. He scaled the staircase swiftly and opened the door to the roof, letting Ruby down to her feet; she nudged Roman to demonstrate her defiance before looking around the rooftop quizzically.

"So what are we up here for?"

He smirked at her and nodded to the side of the stairwell, where a small, slightly nondescript brick building sat awkwardly in the corner of the roof. Ruby tilted her head and began walking cautiously towards it, turning to give Roman a questioning glance before continuing along the short expanse. He smiled and followed suit, his eyes fixated on her in an effort to commit her every expression in this moment to memory. "Are you curious?" he asked nonchalantly, making some small attempt at small talk to break Ruby's silence.

"You mean am I wondering why we're here to visit a strange tiny building on your roof? Yes, actually, I'm really really curious. What in the word are you hiding in here?" Ruby studied the somewhat squat door with hesitation, her fingers tracing around the brass doorknob before gripping the handle and opening it slowly. Roman smiled a little wider as he watched Ruby's jaw drop as if had snapped at the hinges.

It seemed that his surprise had been just as unexpected as he'd anticipated.

oooOOOooo

Ruby nearly couldn't believe her eyes. Nearly. Despite the fact that Roman had demonstrated an utter lack of Christmas all month she wouldn't put it past him to do something this…drastic. And judging by the cheeky grin on his face he had every intention of catching her off-guard. Well he'd succeeded; Ruby was speechless as she looked around the small room. Tapestries and curtains were slung across the walls, the fabric fell to the floor until a few patterned rugs broke their fall, hiding the floor beneath them effectively. And there was a _fireplace_—a legitimate one built into the wall, with a living room chair and several very large, comfy looking pillows resting in front of it. Two floor lamps sat in the far corners, low light spilling across the room as the faint scent of peppermint drifted into her nose.

"You…made all of this…?" she asked slowly, stepping further into the little room and followed closely by Roman.

"Well, to be fair, I didn't make the walls or fireplace, I paid a professional to do that," Roman smirked and knelt down to start the unlit logs in the pit. "I did, however, do all of the interior design. I figured you'd like a story time corner that looked like it was a bit…much."

Ruby let out a small laugh. "So this is what that is?"

"Well you have mentioned your undying love of fantasy," Roman remarked as he lit the kindling for the fire and replaced the protective screen. "So I figured I'd give you a little story spot just for you." He stood and walked back to her, his smile still wide and speaking volumes about how pleased he was with himself. "There is one more bit. Come here." Roman brought a hand to Ruby's waist and led her to the pile of pillows, where he sat her down in front of him as he reached for something hidden behind it.

Ruby's brow furrowed a bit as he pulled a rather large rectangular present out from behind the cushions and held it out to her. She took it from him hesitantly, pausing a moment to study the shiny gold wrapping paper before ripping it away to reveal a thick, leather-bound book of what was, according to the spine, a huge collection of fairy tales. "Where did you find this?" Ruby looked the volume over in astonishment, admiring the intricate engravings on the cover with genuine disbelief.

"I found it at a little independent bookstore. The clerk said this was their best fairy tail collection," Roman pulled Ruby closer to him and rested his head on her shoulder, "Check the inside."

Ruby glanced at him a moment before complying and opening the book only to notice a bookmark hidden in the middle of the book. She flipped to the page and found that the bookmark was, in fact, a receipt for the volume itself, placed neatly at the beginning of her favorite story, _Little Red Riding Hood_. "And you actually bought it," Ruby smiled, "With whose money?"

Roman put on a slight offended scowl. "Mine."

"Which you got how…?"

He shrugged at that. "Details."

She sighed a little at that. "Roman."

"Hey I bought the book, don't I get points for that?"

"Yes you do." Ruby laughed lightly kissed him on the cheek. "Thank you." She paused a moment before suddenly frowning and hiding her head in her hands. "Oh god…"

"What?"

"You did all this and all I got you is a pack of cards and candy cigars…"

There was a moment of silence before Roman broke into a loud fit of laughter. "Christ Red…honestly."

"I should've gotten you more!"

"You're fine Red, seriously, you got me a really good present."

"No I didn't…"

"You did though."

"What about my gift was good?" Ruby made eye contact with Roman, and he smiled lightly as he turned her towards him and pressed his forehead again hers.

"You're here," he murmured. "Trust me, I appreciate that a lot." Roman brought his hands up to Ruby's cheeks and pressed a soft kiss against her lips, pulling her closer to him as she hugged her new book to her chest. She returned the affection promptly, her arms loosening around the leather-bound volume while his hands trailed down to hold her waist. They broke away slightly, Ruby pouting a little as Roman smiled and straightened out her bangs.

"Besides," he continued, "I've a habit of going overboard, yours was just right."

"You sure?" Ruby asked lightly.

"Positive. Now, why don't you read me the fairy tale I picked out to me?"

She squinted at that. "I thought you didn't like fairy tales."

"I don't, but considering that you love them and it is Christmas, I'll survive."

Ruby smiled and repositioned herself so that her back was leaning on Roman's chest before reopening the volume and turning to the first page of her favorite tale. She hadn't expected any of this, but it was perfect nonetheless. The comfort of the cushions and the warmth of the fireplace, the faint scent of peppermint, everything. And the feeling of Roman's arms holding her made it even better. Every fiber of her being wished that this moment in time could last forever. With a small clearing of her throat, Ruby began to read the story, slowly and clearly like the night sky outside.

"Once upon a time…"

oooOOOooo

_Rosewick trash Peeves reporting in and thank you to all of the Rosewick Garbage Bin of BEAUTY for being a terribly fun nightly group call, and terribly fucking distracting. God you make it impossible for me to get my work done. So. Happy New Years guys, I know this is hella late, and also hella long, but to be fair you have the Rosewick Garbage Bin partially to blame. In any case. Reviews._

_Regarding a review about the age of consent…I do understand that, I really do. There are a couple of reasons I'm not having them do the do yet, and one in particular is the age gap and another is the fact that in my fic they've only been together for a month. So, more time at this point, because frankly, Ruby isn't ready yet and I don't do non-con, ever._

_To the person who took note of my pun in the first chapter's end note: Literally had not realized that that was a pun._

_Regarding the rather large review I got praising my work….O.o Thanks_

_One person asked me if the Christmas special was a throwaway pile of fluff or if it was cohesive with the story…honestly at the moment it is the former…its propensity for becoming the latter depends on the events to come, which are not entirely hashed out._

_This person also asked me if I was god. I am not, though if you asked the members of the Rosewick Garbage Bin of BEAUTY, they might compare me to Satan._

_To the people that expressed love for Olive…thank you :D as of this chapter she officially has a last name! Olive's full name is now Olive Gardner [punny by the request of tumblr user **romantrashwick**]_

_One person that I use Pyrrha as the person Ruby goes to later on…I'll keep that in mind…_

_Someone asked how old Roman is in my fic…he's 21 in this. He mentions it explicitly in the seventh chapter during the dream sequence._

_So…updates…there's going to be a temporary hiatus while I'm getting ready for college, and possibly the first few weeks of college. In the meantime, however, I will be updating my tumblr and posting Still Dreaming and Rosewick related things, so if you haven't been to it already, the url is alice—with-a-bowtie dot tumblr dot com. Regarding story/writing related things, I'm planning to write a drabble about Roman's childhood on my tumblr and possibly here, along with a few headcanons and other such things. Also as you may have noticed, I made Neo/Olive official in the Christmas special and I intend to in future chapters as well. I also may or may not make them their own independent side story after I've finished Still Dreaming._

_Also my tablet will be here soon and as soon as I have it I'll be able to start drawing again…so….ye._

_Rosewick trash Peeves out until next chapter!_


	17. The First Day and Second Night

_The Events of the Weekend (The First Day and Second Night)_

Roman was notorious for taking long showers. His excessive morning routine confined him to the washroom for near an hour, so he was far from surprised when Ruby was no longer on his bed and his scroll carelessly thrown on the mattress. He chuckled lightly, one hand reaching back to rub the back of his neck as he approached the bed. Despite slight irritation at the thought that he'd have to reclaim the highest score on his game, he was curious to see how far Red had gotten. Roman picked up his scroll and unlocked it; his smirk faded in all but a split-second and he swore under his breath. He'd been careless, forgetting that Ruby was against his choice of work. Careless about the password that no one else (save for maybe Junior or Neo) would've guessed. Careless in thinking it'd be alright to leave her unattended in his apartment.

Roman was about to get out the Melodic Cudgel and hunt her down. No one blind-sided him and got away with it. He almost discarded all the feelings of affection he had for her right then and there. Almost, except before he could get very far he caught a glimpse of something out of place in his peripheral vision. Ruby's backpack was still here. Roman's brow knit together at the bag as his panic subsided—Red wouldn't have left here without that, especially since her cloak was still draped over the top of it. Ruby was still here. He frowned at the recognition and exited his bedroom, his eyes scanning his apartment for signs of her. His apartment seemed void of any life with nothing but a note on the front door to show for it. He swore under his breath again and stormed up the entrance, ripping the piece of paper off angrily only to realize that the note wasn't from Ruby. It was from Olive. Roman raised his eyebrows as he began scanning the page.

_Good morning my friends!_

_Thank you for letting me crash at your place last night, I honestly appreciate it (your guest bed is super comfy, by the way). Anywho, I have a date (with Neo, SCORE!) today so I'll be out. Probably all day. And I might not come back tonight. That is, is things go really **really **well (If ya know what I'm sayin' –wink-). So have fun you two! Behave yourselves, I don't want to interrupt anything that might occur on the couch in my absence!_

_See ya later!_

_Olive_

_p.s.—Roman I thought you might wanna know that Ruby's out on the balcony and she looks kinda upset. I just thought I'd let you know that if that's not fixed before I get back I'm going to have to use my anti-upset-friend powers to hurt you. Have a nice day!_

Roman perked an eyebrow at the page before sighing and placing the note on the small table by the door. If Ruby's other friends were as unusual as Olive, he wasn't sure he wanted to meet them. Oddness aside, at least she'd been kind enough to point him in the right direction. Roman grumbled a little and shuffled through the living area towards the balcony. He swung the door open in a fluid motion, turning just slightly and noticing Ruby curled up on the outcrop. His brow furrowed a little—a quick scan of her features revealed that she was far from cheerful, but he was currently a little too irritated to care.

"You know, I may be wrong," he began as he stepped out onto the balcony, immediately noting how Ruby flinched at the sound of his voice, "but generally when you decide to go through someone's things for information you're supposed to clean up after yourself."

Ruby closed her eyes, her head craned up towards the sky, "You're angry," she spoke up, her voice somewhat broken, almost as if she had just been crying.

"Admittedly I'm a little put off. Mostly with myself for being stupid enough to leave you with the opportunity, but partially with you for picking the worst time to forget your moral standards." Roman glanced behind himself before leaning himself on the balcony. "So out of curiosity, why are you still here? Did you want to save me the trouble of coming to look for you?"

Ruby drew in a deep breath and looked at Roman, her expression solemn and little somber. "I didn't read anything."

"You didn't? Well then, if you didn't read anything, would you like to explain to me why the file just so happens to be open on my scroll? That'd be _lovely_."

"Because I was going to."

"And you didn't because…?"

"Roman…"

"I feel like I have the right to know why you supposedly changed your mind."

Ruby let out another long sigh; her eyes closing once more as she looked up again. "I—I can't explain it…it's complic—"

"I would hope," Roman interjected with a slightly venomous undertone, "That you know better than to use that excuse on me, Red."

Ruby winced again, hugging her knees a little tighter as her gaze went back to him. "You don't want me to tell you why."

"Actually, I'm pretty sure that I wouldn't ask unless I wanted to know. So let's skip to the part where you tell me what possessed you to open the folder and then sit out here and pretend you didn't read anything."

"You know I suck at lying Roman. I promise I didn't read anything."

"Your_ word_ is not exactly a valid reason to trust you at this moment, so I would suggest you come up with a better excuse for me not grabbing my cane and shooting you right here, right now." Roman watched as Red sat there trying to collect herself, silently fuming as he contemplated the idea of not giving her the chance to speak. Roman crossed his arms, his eyes continuing to drill into Ruby as she struggled to find her words. "I'm waiting."

She let out a shuddered sigh, swinging her head down towards the floor as she relaxed her legs a little. Her arms slumped in front of her, and to Roman she almost looked reminiscent of a broken doll. He softened a bit as the image set in—it seemed his affection had not completely subsided to his rage and instead he found himself sympathizing just slightly to her current melancholy.

"If…if I had…read those files…" she began softly her head still hanging between her shoulders, "and had given up the information…you might've been captured, right?"

Roman frowned and tilted his head. "That would be a possibility. I'm failing to see how this is your excuse."

Ruby drew in another short breath her body seemed to stiffen at his last sentence. "If you were captured…you'd be executed, right?"

"Well that would be the government's plan," Roman said bluntly, causing Ruby to cringe. His frown deepened at the action. "Is that really what stopped you?"

"I can't—" Ruby shook her head and hid her face with her hands, her body trembling sporadically with each breath. "I can't think about it...please…"

Roman felt his heart wrench as his anger subsided completely; she'd been right, he didn't want to know about this. Ruby hadn't lied about not reading the files and if this was what stopped her…then things had definitely taken a turn for the worse. If she'd stopped to protect him…it meant she was breaking her own rules. And what he was witnessing was the result. He was watching her begin to fall apart. Roman swallowed hard and brushed away the thought before approaching her slowly, kneeling down in front of her shuddering form.

"Hey," Roman brought a hand up to Ruby's cheek, only to have her refuse the comfort. "Red." He waited a moment as Ruby slowly lifted her eyes to greet his. "I'm not going to get captured, okay? And even if I do, I'm gonna make sure I don't end up in front of any firing squad."

"But—"

"I promise, okay? I'm not going to let someone as boneheaded as Ironwood be the death of me." Roman pressed his forehead up against Ruby's, pausing a moment as she took another short gasp of air. "You know what? I'm free all day today, so why don't we stay in? Just you, me, some bad take-out, and every game and movie I own. Nothing else. Just us."

Ruby smiled lightly and let out a small chuckle, her hands traveling to his cheeks while a few small tears escaped from her eyes. "That sounds nice."

oooOOOooo

Roman had given up. That's it, he'd thrown in the towel fifteen minutes into their fighting game and was now refusing to watch Ruby pummel his now immobile avatar to dust.

"I'm not sure whether to be amused or disappointed with you for rage-quitting this early," Ruby noted with a giggle as she promptly beat away at his character's health bar.

"Well forgive me for finding it pointless to continue when your skills at this are almost unearthly."

"They're not actually…Yang beats me all the time. You just…kinda suck at this."

"Gee, thanks Red. I really did need that compliment, it was very uplifting."

Ruby glanced over at Roman and snorted a bit as she watched him dig into one of their take out containers and try to avoid looking at the screen. She completed the fight quickly and crawled over to where he was sitting, grabbing some chopsticks on the way over. "Save some rice for me," she whined as she reached for the box.

"I don't have to save anything for you, I'm the one that paid for it."

"Not fair!" Ruby began struggling against Roman to get a bit of rice from the container, only to end up childishly wrestling him over the food.

"If I spill any of this because of you, you have to pay for my new couch," he stated flatly as the container he was holding over his head tipped ever so slightly.

"You wouldn't have to worry about spilling any if you'd just let me have some rice!"

"There is plenty of other take out."

"Well I happen to want rice right now!" Ruby insisted as she tried to climb up his other arm and grab the container. She almost got it from him. Almost. But it seemed that Roman had the brilliant idea to tickle the outstretched side of her torso, causing her to flinch back at the contact and laugh. She tried again with the same results, going between climbing and doubling over in laughter until finally she gave in and plopped down on the couch, her head falling into Roman's lap as hugged her knees and arms over her stomach to protect it.

"Meanie…" she whined, and Roman chuckled as he rested one arm on her back.

"I suppose I take the victory this time," he remarked nonchalantly as he resumed eating.

"Can't I have a little?"

"Hmm…let me think…no."

"Please?" Ruby looked up at Roman pleadingly and he let out a heavy sigh.

"Why do you do that?"

"Do what?"

"Why do you have to make that kicked puppy face? It's like you've turned making people feel guilty into a science."

"I just want some rice…"

Roman groaned and brought the rice container down so that Ruby could reach it. "Fine, take it you little thief."

"Like you really have a right to accuse anyone of stealing," she remarked as she sat up and began eating.

"I will make as many accusations as I want, Red."

"Right." Ruby dug further into the rice container as Roman pulled her onto his lap by the waist and nuzzled his face into her neck.

"You're going to eat all of that now that I've surrendered it to you, aren't you?"

"Maybe."

"Hn." Roman pressed a few kisses into Ruby's neck as he wrapped his arms around her. "That's not very nice of you."

"Neither is tickling me til I surrender."

"Well when it stops working, I'll stop doing it," he chuckled and placed another kiss on her neck before carefully prying the not yet empty container out of her hands and leaning over to place it on the coffee table.

"I wasn't done you know," she noted as he laid her back on the couch and climbed on top of her.

"That's fairly unimportant," Roman smirked and brushed his lips against Ruby's, moving away just slightly to kiss her cheek before trailing his lips down to her neck. "And I don't like it when you ignore me, Red."

"I wasn't ignoring you."

"You were going to."

"You don't know that."

"I believe I do."

"You don't."

"I do."

"Don't."

"Do."

"No, you don't," Ruby finally insisted as Roman lifted his head away from her neck and pushed his forehead up against hers.

"Fine," he admitted, "I don't know, however you're being far too adorable at the moment and I don't want to be forced to share you with a take-out dish."

"Meanie."

"You wound me," Roman smirked and pressed a slow kiss onto Ruby's lips, and she returned whilst wrapping her arms over his shoulders and pulling him closer. As the first kiss broke they paused to gasp for air before diving back into each other's lips, each kiss laced with a nip or pull or a stifled moan from Ruby as she fell deeper into the affection. It wasn't supposed to be like this—she knew that all too well—Roman was supposed to be one of her worst enemies, the face, the root of all evil. He was supposed to be everything she despised and scorned—and he wasn't. What he was instead...was surprisingly pleasant.

As Roman pulled Ruby up onto his lap again she wondered when Roman had become a person that she could trust with…herself. Maybe they both kept secrets from each other, and maybe when they were around each other, they weren't the most honest of souls…but they were themselves. No expectations, no playing pretend—this burning affection was real.

And she was drowning in it.

oooOOOooo

He was in trouble. Roman knew that at this point. They both were—Ruby was in danger of breaking, and he needed to find a way out before he started to crumble as well. He needed to, and he couldn't bring himself to. The situation of it all became more and more complex with every passing night. How was he supposed to give her up when he was destined to meet her again in his dreams? How was he supposed to shut her out of his heart when he still cared? When she was inches away even if they were miles apart? It was the questions he couldn't answer that plagued him the most; the impossibility of it all threatened to drive him mad—if it hadn't already.

Roman let out a long sigh, his eyes closing slowly as he tried to fought with himself. He had to try, at least _try_—to end this. If they continued they'd both be hurt. Normally he had no trouble convincing himself to see reason, however he was finding that having Ruby nuzzle her head into the crook his neck was far too distracting.

He let out a hoarse whisper, barely audible enough to break the silence of the room as they lay together on his bed. "Ruby."

She lifted her head slightly look at him, her eyebrows raised a bit from her perked curiosity. "Yeah?"

He let out another sigh. "I'm not sure…I don't think we'll be able to meet again for a while."

Ruby stared at him, her visage impassive as she tilted her head slightly. "…Okay. How long?"

"I don't know. Possibly—no, probably not ever again."

Ruby squinted, a small frown marred her features as she sat up and turned away from him. "Does it—does it have anything to do with your employer?"

Roman frowned a bit before sitting up and leaning his arm on his knee. He paused a moment, hesitating to answer since he knew she wouldn't appreciate the response. "It does."

"…Why?"

"Why what, Red?"

"Why do you have to continue this? What do you gain from it?"

"Always ask the complicated questions, don't you Red?" Roman sighed and hung his head between his shoulders. "My employer, despite first impressions, is not exactly the most…even tempered of individuals. I'm afraid that getting cold feet is very ill advised…unless I want to be brutally murdered."

"So if you stopped doing your job…"

"If I don't hold up my end of the bargain I'll lose my life, among various…other things." Roman fiddled with his nails a moment before his hand went limp and his eyes rose to meet Red's. "I'm not exactly in the most…_maneuverable _of positions at the moment."

Ruby averted her gaze, her head hanging between her shoulders for a moment before she spoke again. "You…you don't have a choice."

"That…just about sums it up, yes."

She let out a shuddered sigh; she hesitated a moment more and turned back to him. She replaced her head into the crook of his neck, and Roman swallowed hard as he resisted the urge to wrap his arms around her and hold her to his chest. They sat in silence for a while, the tension in the air thick and foreboding as Ruby tried to even out her breathing enough to speak. After a few minutes and the added comfort of Roman's hand on the back of her head, she finally managed to speak. "Do I have to give you up?"

Roman froze at the question—it hurt. It hurt far more than it should have. "It would probably best if you did." Roman tried to ignore how cracked and broken his voice sounded, how tight his chest felt and how difficult the lump in his throat was making it to swallow. He could get through this. He'd lost great relationships before. He could manage again.

"I don't want to."

"Ruby…"

"I don't," she insisted, her hand flying up to grasp his shoulder, "I don't care if it's selfish."

"Ruby…this is going to hurt you."

"I don't care."

"That isn't true."

Ruby shook her head, her arm wrapping over his shoulder as she tried to pull him closer. "I _don't_."

"I know you too well Red. You always care."

"I want you."

"Ruby, this could kill you if you aren't careful."

"I want you."

"Please try to be reasonable—"

"I don't care, I want you."

"Give me one good reason why any of this is worth the pain."

He waited as silence spread throughout the room once more, a silence so thick it could have been deafening. Ruby sat still momentarily before pulling herself closer to him and lifting her head away from his shoulder. Roman barely stifled the catch in his breath as he felt her lips on his ear, his eyelids falling over his eyes as he struggled to keep himself composed. He hadn't prepared for any argument she had to that question. He hadn't prepared for any sort of argument at all. He was almost begging some cosmic entity—please, _please_ have her say something he could fight against. Sadly, it wasn't.

"Because I love you."

Roman's eyes flew open, his breath catching instantaneously and his chest tightening in an impossibly painful manner. Love. She would let him break her. For love. Roman sat there a minute, his whole body seemingly paralyzed by the very concept behind what Red had just admitted. He turned to look at her, his eyes still widened from the shock as she brought a hand up to caress his cheek.

"Please don't make me try to hide that."

Roman swallowed past the lump in his throat. He had tried to reason with himself—with her—but it seemed that once more his rationality had shut off and he was thinking with his heart once more. He wrapped his arms around her firmly and lowered her to the bed, his face burying itself into the crook of her neck as they fell back. "You…have the worst timing," Roman stated quietly, winning himself a broken chuckle from Ruby.

"So do you."

"What a pair we make," he replied, his voice dry and somewhat sarcastic. He sat up slightly and brought his face to meet hers, his expression somber as he brought his hands up to her jawline. He paused a moment before pressing a light kiss onto her lips, pulling back just enough to speak. "You know tis is going to destroy both of us."

Ruby smiled a little and drew in a deep breath of air as tears began to leak from her already watery eyes.

"I still love you."

oooOOOooo

_Rosewick trash Peeves reporting in and no this story isn't about to get a lot heavier I have no idea what you're talking about. So. Special thanks to the Rosewick Garbage Bin of BEAUTY as always for being the best helpers and worst distraction I have on my plate right now, it's always a fun time with the lot of you. So. Let's get on with it, shall we? Regarding recent reviews…_

_A stupidly large number of you expressed interest in what Olive got Roman in the Christmas special…well…we could say that she got him a number of…items to 'help' with his and Ruby's love life. Just…draw what you can from that. If you're as innocent as Ruby and this innuendo flies over your head…sorry but I'm going to refrain from delving into the exact details._

_Others offered me good luck on college…well classes start tomorrow (today if we consider the fact that it's currently after midnight where I am, but that's a minor detail) and I am looking forward to it (also bloody terrified)_

_Other updates. I opened up roleplay accounts for Roman and Ruby on tumblr, and if you're perchance a roleplayer or at all interested in watching more Roman and Ruby shenanigans, you can locate them at rubyof-hopefuldreams dot tumblr dot com and romanof-ambitiousdreams dot tumblr dot com. As always, my main tumblr is alice—with-a-bowtie dot tumblr dot com, and I will be on all as much as possible._

_Also if any of you have been witness to some of the…less than pleasant things happening in the RWBY fandom as of late and would like a break from the negativity, I would recommend a relatively new tumblr blog located at positiverwby dot tumblr dot com. Might be able to brighten your day. So._

_Rosewick trash Peeves out until next chapter._


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